Morning by Morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT0HcAr9aeI

Holy Wednesday and the faithfulness of God

By Holy Wednesday, Holy Week has changed its tone.

The palms are long since folded away. Monday’s tenderness still lingers somewhere in the house. Tuesday’s ache still lingers somewhere in the body. And now the week feels quieter, but it's heavier too. How fitting that as I type the dark sky is lit by lightning as ominous thunder splits the quiet in my study . The darkness is also moving in the Gospel. Judas has begun his bargain. The Passover is being prepared. The Cross is drawing nearer by the hour. Today’s readings are Isaiah 50:4–9a, Psalm 69, and Matthew 26:14–25, and together they sound like the deep middle register of Holy Week: not loud, not triumphant, but grave and steady.  And into that gathering shadow, Isaiah gives us this line: Morning after morning he opens my ear.

I cannot read it without hearing the cadence of an old hymn somewhere beneath it all. Steadily like a bell tolling from another room.

Great is Thy faithfulness.

That is what strikes me today. Not brightness. Not ease. Not some insistence that because God is good, Holy Week should feel uncomplicated. Holy Wednesday does not offer uncomplicated things. It gives us the servant whose face is set like flint. It gives us the psalmist whose heart is broken by insult. It gives us Judas asking what he will be given if he hands Jesus over.

There is shadow here.

But there is no shadow of turning with Thee.

That line feels different in Holy Week.

Because it is one thing to sing that God does not change when life is calm and the future feels kind. It is another thing to say it when the Gospel itself is darkening, when betrayal is already in motion, when the soul feels thin, when the heart knows that some days of discipleship are not bright at all. Holy Wednesday is one of those days. And still, beneath the shadow that gathers in Matthew’s Gospel, there is a deeper steadiness: God has not turned. God has not shifted. God has not withdrawn His compassion.

The collect for today says, “The Father willed His Son to submit to the yoke of the Cross for our sake”. Even here, in the movement toward suffering, divine mercy is not absent.

Maybe that is why Isaiah’s line feels so tender to me today.

Morning after morning he opens my ear.

Before the Triduum unfolds. Before the altar is stripped. Before Thursday night gives way to Friday grief. Before the long silence of Saturday.

The Lord opens the ear first.

The servant does not begin with speaking. He begins with hearing. He begins with being awakened. He begins with receiving what God is saying before offering anything himself.

That is such a Holy Wednesday lesson.

By the middle of this week, I do not need dramatic insight. I do not need a spiritual performance. I do not need enough strength for everything that comes next.

I need my ear opened.

I need the mercy that arrives for this morning.

I need grace that does not rush me ahead of today.

Morning by morning new mercies I see.

Not all at once. Not stockpiled for a month. Not poured out in a way that lets me control the whole road ahead. Just morning by morning. Just enough light for today’s obedience. Just enough quiet for today’s prayer. Just enough steadiness for today’s yes.

Holy Wednesday feels like that to me. Not abundance in the loud sense, but provision in the faithful sense. The kind that does not erase the gravity of the Gospel, but the kind that accompanies us inside it. Because the Gospel is grave today.

Judas does not drift accidentally into darkness. He asks his question plainly, premeditated: What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you? And from that moment on, Matthew says, he looked for an opportunity. The betrayal is not just foretold now. It is underway. The table will still be set. The meal will still be shared. Jesus will still speak. But the machinery of handing Him over has already begun.

Thou changest not; Thy compassions, they fail not.

That line lands differently in Holy Week too.

Because human hearts do change. Moods change. Loyalties change. Courage changes. Resolve changes. Peter will falter. Judas will bargain. The crowd will turn. Psalm 69 gives words to that wounded human reality: insult, estrangement, weakness, the absence of consolation.

But God does not move in that changing way. His faithfulness is not fragile. His mercy is not moody. His presence does not depend on whether this is an easy week to walk through.

As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

I think that may be what I need most on Holy Wednesday. Not the promise that nothing painful is near, but the promise that the Lord remains Himself in the middle of it. The same God who wakes the ear also steadies the servant. The same God who hears the poor also stays near to those in bonds. The same God who permits His Son to enter suffering does not abandon Him there.

And if that is true of Christ, it is also true for those of us trying to follow Him through this week.

Maybe Holy Wednesday is asking less of me than I tend to ask of myself.

Maybe it is not asking me to feel profound. Maybe it is not asking me to carry Good Friday before it arrives. Maybe it is not asking me to manufacture spiritual intensity.

Maybe it is simply asking me to listen.

To let the Lord open my ear again: to hear before I speak, receive before I strive, pray before I explain, and to let my soul be trained in the smaller rhythm of fidelity.

There is something deeply domestic and ordinary about that, which is perhaps why I love it. Morning prayer before the house fully wakes. The first cup of coffee and the first quiet. The Bible opened before the day begins demanding answers. A whispered psalm in a dim kitchen. A softened tone with people. A little less noise. A little more attention. The domestic church often keeps Holy Week this way: not always with grandeur, but with repeated consent to grace in the middle of ordinary life. That movement from hearing to speaking in Isaiah, and the sorrowful realism of the Gospel, both fit the hidden work of Holy Week in the home.

Strength for today.

Not strength for next year. Not strength for every future grief. Not enough courage to feel heroic. Strength for today.

Isaiah says, I have not rebelled, have not turned back. He speaks of the servant whose ear is opened, whose face is set, whose help is the Lord. That is not hardness. It is not emotional numbness. It is faithfulness under pressure.

Not spectacle. Steadiness.

Not denial. Dependence.

Not escape from sorrow. A soul quietly taught how to remain.

By this point in Holy Week, I do not need brightness. I need constancy. I need the God who does not turn. I need the God whose mercies are still arriving with the morning. I need the God who gives pardon for sin, peace that endures, presence to cheer and guide, and strength for today. And when the week grows darker, to keep tolling that quiet truth beneath it all:

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.