Thursday of Holy Week

This Holy Week, I’m posting brief daily reflections inspired by some famous (or not so famous) statues. Today’s statue is probably one of the least famous. This is the statue of St. Pius X, which stood outside St. Pius X Regional High School (Piscataway, New Jersey) when I was a student there. You’ll notice poor old Pius’ nose is broken. I’m not sure how that happened, but my guess is that it wasn’t a great holy act of God. Rather, it was probably an act of humans – an act of carelessness, or even of outright vandalism.

Because we as members of the St. Pius X High School community, like all human communities, were not perfect. We need God’s forgiveness. We need mercy. We need to be reminded of the story about to be told on this Maundy Thursday – of a God who loved us enough to take on human form and die on the cross, whether we deserve that or not. A love which overcomes all our destruction, both intentional and unintentional. May you know that mercy today.