Tuesday of Holy Week: Pacing Ourselves

BY COURTNEY ESTEVES | March 26th, 2024
Today’s readings
Versión en español

If Lent were a marathon, we would be approaching mile 24 today. 

This parallel between 40 days and 26.2 miles is inspired by Marcia Lane-McGee, co-author of Fat Luther, Slim Pickin’s: A Black Catholic Celebration of Faith, Tradition, and Diversity. In the “Triduum” chapter, Lane-McGee shares a memorable story about calling her mom at mile 26 of a marathon, “feeling as if it were finally over.” She learned, though, that celebrating at mile 26 was premature. Lane-McGee writes that the final fifth of a mile is “a painful, uncomfortable part that makes the race longer than I think it should be, but I can’t celebrate until it’s done.” 

Although my introduction to Lane-McGee’s insights was a few weeks ago in a book group at my university’s Catholic center, reading today’s Scripture brought back to mind her marathon analogy.

Today’s Gospel situates us at that most important dinner table, but we have not yet received the stories of Christ’s washing of the feet or offering of body and blood in the bread and wine at that same table. Similarly, this Tuesday, we find ourselves in a time known as “Holy Week,” but it is not yet the holy days of Triduum. 

We are at the table and we are in the week, but let us pace ourselves! At this mile 24 marker, how might you refresh your approach to today and these coming days? How might we suspend our celebration just a little while longer to fully immerse ourselves in the heartbreaking drama of these days? In a time of not yet, may you turn toward God in every fraction of a mile of this Holy Week journey, trusting that God is already there.