Maundy Thursday

We have had this discussion before. When does Lent end?

Is it after the striping of the Cross Thursday night? Friday after attending church? Saturday the second before Midnight?This seems to be more and more a discussion about dogma than substance.

What is important is that we carry what we have learned and experienced during Lent into our daily lives. Why should we discontinue fasting, praying, and meditating?The difference between Lent and the other seasons is Easter.

Once a year we celebrate something that is so special in our lives that winning the Final Four, beating the Yankees, and winning Powerball all pale in comparison.

We begin this Maundy Thursday on the most sober of notes. Jesus is led away to the cross. We are devastated. We cry like young Jake when his favorite team loses. Yet as a Jewish proverb says, “ as soap washes a body, tears wash the soul.”

I apologize for the trivialization, but can anyone watch or read about a reenactment of Christ’s passion without tears? I can’t. We even know the happy ending, and I still cry.

This day allow yourselves to cry, to allow the tears to wash your soul; because come Sunday your tears will be of another variety.

Share this post

• 
• 
• 
• 

About the author

Webb Hubbell is the former Associate Attorney General of The United States. His novels, When Men Betray, Ginger Snaps, A Game of Inches, The Eighteenth Green, and The East End are published by Beaufort Books and are available online or at your local bookstore. When Men Betray won one of the IndieFab awards for best novel in 2014. Ginger Snaps and The Eighteenth Green won the IPPY Awards Gold Medal for best suspense/thriller. His latest, “Light of Day” will be on the bookstands soon.