“My heart hath expected reproach and misery. And I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and I found no one; and for one that would comfort me, and I found none. And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

“And I found no one.” The ancient tradition of the Church reads the Book of Psalms, and hears the Lord already speaking from centuries before, and thus She choses these insupportably afflicted words for today’s Offertory.

On Calvary, the Lord entered the depths of human suffering – not just through the physical horrors of death by scourging and crucifixion, but the even greater suffering of abandonment, isolation, and betrayal by His closest friends and even, in His human nature, by God Himself: “Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani! My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

“I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and I found no one.” In the midst of suffering, the great difference is not between having some friends and many friends to support you. It’s between there being someone, and there being no one. If we have at least someone who we know is on our side, we can persevere. But when there is no one, then it is true that the heart is full of reproach and misery.

Christ entered the depths of human suffering, He experienced reproach and misery, so that in the most difficult moments, when it seems that there is no one, there is always Someone who suffers with you. Even when you can say with the Prophet, “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting,” you will never have to say, “I found no one.”

The task of the Christian for Holy Week is to transform that “that was no one” of the Lord to a “there is someone,” just as He does for you, to console His Sacred Heart through your works of penance, your contemplation of His Passion, and your presence at the solemn liturgical commemorations of these holy days. In the Holy Eucharist, the Heart transfixed by the lance and by the ingratitude and opprobrium of men, waits that there would be someone.

Bishop Rhoades carries in his breviary (his priestly prayer book) a holy card with an image of the Crucifixion, printed with those haunting words from Psalm 69: “I looked for one who would comfort me, and I found no one.” I saw it once and remarked on how hauntingly beautiful those lines are. “Mother Teresa gave that to me,” he responded. And he turned over that holy card to reveal the faded pencil marks, in which Saint Teresa of Calcutta had written, “Be the one.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

II Sunday of the Passion (Palm Sunday)

13 April, A.D. MMXXV