"Now my soul is troubled...

"Jesus answered them, 'The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit...Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.  Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say -- 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.  Father, glorify your name.  Then a voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.'  The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, 'An angel has spoken to him.'  Jesus answered, 'This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.  Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.'"

My soul, too, is troubled, in solidarity with many others this Holy Tuesday, as I struggle with the "Why?" of the senseless murder of little Sarah Cantu in Tracy, CA.  What a way of the cross her parents and family are walking! How devastated and frustrated must the community of Tracy feel this Holy Week.  I can only hold onto the assurance of Jesus' words that if the grain of wheat "dies, it bears much fruit", that, as God's servants, we too must walk the way of the cross as unflinchingly as Jesus, though it's very hard to come to grips with this.  "Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, Savior, have mercy on us sinners."