The Triduum – April 2-4, 2026

Maundy Thursday – April 2

A Reflection in the Voice of Simon Peter

I have replayed that night in my mind more times than I can count. The room was warm with the smell of roasted lamb and bread still soft from baking. We had gathered as we always did for Passover, remembering the night our ancestors ate in haste, sandals on their feet, staffs in their hands, trusting that God would lead them out of bondage. I knew those stories by heart. I thought I understood them.

But nothing prepared me for what happened when he stood up from the table.

Jesus had been quiet that evening—quieter than usual. There was a weight in the room, something unsaid but pressing on all of us. And then he rose, took off his outer robe, and wrapped a towel around his waist. I remember the sound of the basin as he filled it with water. I remember the way the room fell silent, every one of us watching him, confused.

This was not the work of a teacher. This was not the work of the one we had seen raise the dead and calm the sea. This was the work of a servant.

When he knelt in front of me, I felt my whole world tilt. I could not bear it. “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” I asked him. It came out sharper than I intended, but I was afraid—afraid of what it meant for him to stoop so low, afraid of what it meant for me if I let him.

“You do not know now what I am doing,” he said, “but later you will understand.”

But I didn’t want to understand later. I wanted to understand right then. I wanted to keep things the way they had always been—him above, me below, the world in its proper order. So I told him no. Absolutely not. “You will never wash my feet.”

He looked at me with that steady gaze that always saw more of me than I wanted to reveal. “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”

Those words broke something open in me. I realized then that he wasn’t just washing feet. He was offering himself—again. He was giving himself away in a way that asked something of me in return. Not perfection. Not strength. Not certainty. But willingness. Openness. A heart that could receive what he offered.

So I blurted out the only thing I could think of: “Then not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” If he was going to give himself so freely, then I wanted all of it. I wanted to be made clean in ways I didn’t even know I needed.

After he washed us, he put his robe back on and sat down again. His voice was gentle, but it carried the weight of a command that would shape the rest of my life: “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

I didn’t understand it fully that night. But I began to see that he was showing us a way of living that wasn’t built on pride or fear or scarcity. He was showing us a way of living that made room—room for mercy, room for forgiveness, room for one another. A way of living that trusted that God had already given us enough, and that we could therefore give ourselves away without losing anything essential.

Later, when he took the bread and broke it, saying, “This is my body that is for you,” I felt that same truth settle deeper into me. He was giving himself again—completely, without hesitation. And when he lifted the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood,” I realized that he was binding himself to us in a way that no betrayal, no denial, not even death could undo.

Even now, years later, when I lift the cup of salvation as the psalmist says, I remember that night. I remember how he inclined his ear to us, how he loved us to the end. I remember how he asked us to love one another with that same steady, generous love.

And I remember how hard it was for me—how hard it still is sometimes—to let myself be loved like that. To let myself be washed. To let myself be fed. To let myself be forgiven.

But that is where it begins. Not with what I can do for him, but with what he has already done for me. Not with my strength, but with his tenderness. Not with my certainty, but with his invitation.

Tonight, as we gather again around the table, as we hear the ancient story of deliverance, as we receive the bread and the cup, I hear his words echoing across the years: “Do you know what I have done to you?”

I am still learning. But I know this much: he has shown us a way. A way that begins with being willing to receive what he offers. A way that continues as we offer ourselves to one another. A way that leads us, step by step, into the heart of God.

And tonight, he kneels before us once more—not to shame us, not to test us, but to love us. To make us whole. To draw us into a life shaped by the same grace he poured out that night in the upper room.

May we have the courage to let him.

Good Friday – April 3

A Reflection from the “Good Thief” crucified next to Jesus

I never expected my life to end on a hill outside the city, nailed to a cross, exposed to the jeers of strangers. I had made my choices — choices that led me down darker and darker paths until there was no path left at all. Rome didn’t waste crosses on the innocent. I knew why I was there.

But I did not understand why he was.

I had heard whispers about him, of course. Everyone had. A teacher. A healer. A prophet. Some said he was the Messiah. Others said he was a threat. I didn’t know what to believe. But when they dragged him up the hill beside us, already bruised and bleeding, something in me stirred — something I had not felt in years. Not fear. Not anger. Something like recognition.

They mocked him as they lifted his cross into place. “Here’s your king,” Pilate had said. The soldiers laughed. The crowd shouted. Even the other man crucified beside him hurled insults, desperate to spit out one last bitterness before the end.

But Jesus… he said nothing. Not at first. He simply looked at them — at all of us — with a steadiness I could not comprehend. It was as if he saw more than the cruelty of that moment. As if he saw something beyond it.

I remembered the words of the prophet Isaiah, words I had heard long ago in synagogue but never understood: “He was despised and rejected… a man of suffering… wounded for our transgressions.” I had always imagined a mighty figure, a warrior who would crush our enemies. I never imagined someone who would take the blows himself.

As the hours passed, the pain grew sharper, and the sky grew darker. I heard him speak only a few times. Once, to his mother and the disciple standing beside her — words of tenderness, even as he hung dying. Once, when he said he was thirsty. And once, when he cried out with a voice that shook me to my core: “It is completed.”

Completed. Finished. Fulfilled. I didn’t know what he meant, but I felt the weight of it.

I looked at him then — really looked at him. And I saw no anger in his face. No hatred. No fear. Only a kind of fierce compassion, as if he were holding the whole world in his gaze, even as the world rejected him.

And something in me broke open.

I had spent my life taking what wasn’t mine, grasping for whatever scraps I could find. I had lived as if there was never enough — not enough mercy, not enough forgiveness, not enough hope. But here, beside me, was a man who gave everything he had left — even his last breath — without holding anything back.

I found myself speaking before I could stop myself. “Jesus,” I said, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

I didn’t know why I said it. I didn’t know what I expected. I only knew that if there was any goodness left in the world, it was hanging on the cross beside me.

He turned his head — slowly, painfully — and looked at me. Really looked at me. As if I were not a criminal, not a failure, not a man who had wasted his life. As if I were worth seeing.

And he said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

I had never been given anything so freely.

In that moment, I understood something I had never understood before: that God does not wait for us to be worthy. God does not wait for us to get it right. God meets us where we are — even on a cross, even in our last breath — and offers us a life we could never earn.

I had nothing to give him. No promises. No future. No time left to make amends. All I had was a plea whispered through cracked lips. And he answered it with a promise.

As the darkness deepened and the earth trembled, I felt a strange peace settle over me. Not because the pain lessened — it didn’t. Not because my fate changed — it didn’t. But because I knew I was not alone. I knew that the one beside me had taken on more than nails and thorns. He had taken on the weight of every broken life, every shattered hope, every sin that had ever chained us.

Including mine.

When he breathed his last, I felt something shift in the world — as if a great curtain had been torn open. And I knew, even before my own breath failed, that his promise was true.

I tell you this now not because I was righteous, but because I wasn’t. Not because I was brave, but because I was desperate. Not because I understood him, but because he understood me.

And if he could look at me — a man who had nothing left to offer — and speak a word of life, then there is hope for every one of us.

Even here. Even now. Even on this day we call good.

Holy Saturday – April 4

A Reflection from Joseph of Arimathea

I did not expect to be the one who carried his body.

For years I followed him quietly, afraid of what it might cost me if anyone knew. I was a member of the council, a man with a reputation to protect, a man who had learned to move carefully through the world. I admired him from a distance — his courage, his compassion, the way he saw people others overlooked. But I kept my distance all the same.

And then came yesterday.

I watched from the edges as they crucified him. I saw the sky darken. I heard his final cry. And something in me broke open. All my caution, all my fear, all the ways I had tried to protect myself — none of it mattered anymore. The one I had followed in secret was gone, and I could not let him be discarded like a criminal.

So I went to Pilate. My voice trembled as I asked for the body. I expected to be refused. I expected to be questioned. Instead, he gave permission, almost with relief. And suddenly the responsibility was mine.

Nicodemus met me there, carrying spices far more generous than either of us could justify. We worked in silence, our hands shaking as we wrapped his body in linen. I had touched death before, but never like this. There was a stillness about him that felt heavier than the stone we would soon roll across the tomb.

As we worked, I thought of the words of Job: “If mortals die, will they live again?” I had asked that question many times in my life, but never with such urgency. I thought of the psalmist crying out from the depths, waiting for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning. And I realized that this day — this strange, aching day — was a day of waiting.

Not the frantic waiting of fear, but the quiet waiting of love.

We placed him in the tomb I had carved for myself. It was meant to be my resting place, a sign of my status, a final mark of dignity. But as we laid him there, I felt none of that. Only the sense that what I had once claimed for myself now belonged to him.

When we rolled the stone into place, the sound echoed in my chest. Final. Heavy. Unbearable. And yet… not without hope. I could not explain it then, and I cannot fully explain it now. But even in the silence of that sealed tomb, something in me knew that the story was not finished.

Holy Saturday is a day without answers. A day when the world holds its breath. A day when we sit with grief that has not yet turned to joy, with questions that have not yet found their resolution.

But it is also a day when small acts matter — the courage to step forward, the willingness to offer what we have, the quiet tending of what feels broken beyond repair.

I did not understand what would come next. I only knew that love had compelled me to act, even when I was afraid. And sometimes that is all we can do: take the next faithful step, even in the shadows, trusting that dawn will come in its own time.