Love, sacrifice, and other Holy Week reminders

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends,” John 15:13.

Last week at the migrant center, a kid about nine years old wanted to help me hand out cake for one of the birthdays we were celebrating. We celebrate many birthdays at the center for young and old. This kid has been there with his seven brothers and sisters, and mom, for about three weeks.

He has some kind of leg, hand, and arm disability. His mom helps him walk. His brother helps him in the restroom. His hands are stiff and held out in an immobile position. He can hold things just differently than the rest of us. He did help me with the cake distribution. All kids want to help in some way.

It’s Holy Week, and the lessons of kindness and forgiveness are reminders of the world we live in, in 2024. A world where kindness and forgiveness need to be reminded of as much as possible. Those reminders come in all shapes and sizes — religious figures, family members, and the disabled kid at the migrant center.

The kid was all smiles, just like any other kid would be with a big slice of confetti cake in front of him. When you’re a kid in a migrant center, you rely on the generosity of others. The volunteers, your family, and a large circle of folks protecting you from a complicated world.

That’s what our world has been, not just recently, but for a long time…