Unless a grain of wheat falls by Brother Blair Nuyda, A.A.
Today’s Lenten reflection is from Brother Daniele Caglioni, A.A.,
Campus Minister at Assumption University
The image in today’s Gospel reading of a grain of wheat dying makes me wonder, “Why do we serve our brothers and sisters?” The service that Jesus calls us to will not be featured on an Instagram newsfeed or the front page of a newspaper. Most of the time, people will ignore it. And yet, from the moment Our Lord brought the Church to birth, she has flourished because people have chosen to die like grains of wheat out of love for others. Martyrs, teachers, sisters and brothers … all of them witness to the truth of the Paschal mystery: there is life on the other side of death.
Even today, there are thousands of doctors, nurses, and frontline workers who battle through extreme exhaustion, hunger, and isolation from their own family and friends in order to care for others through this global pandemic. Who knows their names? They have served, month after endless month, because they believe that life, powered by love, always wins in the end. In dying to their own comforts and desires, they have made a true gift of themselves to others.
How can we, this Lent, continue to make gifts of ourselves to others? For it is in giving that we receive, St. Francis’s beautiful prayer reminds us. We receive who we really are, made in the image of God. How can the service we give, our own daily dying, show the face of God to others?