We didn’t tackle too many passages today in our study of James. We just took a close look at James 1:21 to the end of the chapter. There was plenty of meat on the bones.

These verses are for those of us who are familiar with holy things. We know the language. We recognize the rhythms. Maybe we can even anticipate the shape of a passage before it unfolds. The danger is that even without our noticing, verses that were meant to pierce begin instead to pass gently over the surface. We think we know… and that is dangerous.

St. James will not allow that.

He writes with a kind of holy impatience, as though he sees clearly what we so often obscure: that the distance between hearing and becoming is the most dangerous distance in the spiritual life. Illusion and self-deception are more dangerous for us than ignorance or resistance.

James isn’t concerned with our comfort. He is very concerned with clarity.

The Courage to Lay It Aside

“Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

The “therefore” anchors everything. In light of a God who is wholly good, who gives without shifting shadow, who is not the author of temptation but the giver of life, there is a response required. It’s not a vague intention or a gauzy spiritual sentiment. It’s a deliberate action: put it away.

The language is physical. This is not the gentle pruning of a few undesirable habits. It is the stripping off of something that clings too closely, something that has become uncomfortably familiar. Sin is not merely an action but an atmosphere, a way of being we can grow accustomed to inhabiting.

This is at the heart of Take Up & Read’s mission. This is where coaching meets the text in a very concrete way. This is what makes me excited to get up in the morning, sit at the computer, meet people, and hear stories! Most people are not wrestling with abstract evil. They are living inside patterns that have become normalized: the tone that sharpens under stress, the interior narrative that justifies resentment, the habit of rehearsing grievances, the subtle indulgence of self-pity. While none of it feels as dramatic as BIG SINS, all of it shapes the soul.

So James begs us to take the first step, not in all-caps intensity, but in honesty.

Where have I grown comfortable with what diminishes me?

That question, answered without defensiveness, is already a form of grace. Because once we see clearly, we are no longer negotiating. We are deciding.

James does not ask us to manage what harms us. He asks us to lay it aside.
Renounce it altogether.

The Posture That Makes Growth Possible

The renunciation is not the end of the movement. It is the clearing of space.

“Receive with meekness the implanted word.”

If the first command feels active, maybe even forceful, the second feels softer but no less demanding. To receive with meekness is to relinquish control over the terms of our own formation. It is to approach God without preconditions, without insisting that we will change as long as the change remains comfortable, manageable, or self-directed.

Meekness is often confused with passivity. But meekness is active. It’s deciding to be coachable and to let God be the coach. It’s to have a teachable spirit. It is receptivity.

And here is where many thoughtful, capable women find themselves stalled. They are willing to work. They are willing to examine. They are willing even to sacrifice. But they are far less willing to be taught in ways that unsettle their previously settled understanding of self. To receive the Word with meekness is to allow it to contradict us.

It is to sit with Scripture long enough that it begins to read us back. To notice the places of resistance—not dismiss them, not rationalize them, but stay there long enough for something deeper to be exposed.

The Word is called “implanted” for a reason. It is not external instruction. It is a living seed. But seeds do not grow in hardened ground. If you want to know whether the Word is taking root, you do not need to measure your knowledge. You need only ask: where does my life feel like it’s being rearranged (against my wishes, maybe)?

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The Blessing We Try to Avoid

James 1:12–20

Sometimes, the greatest blessings don’t look like blessings at all. We want the life that does not press too hard against us, the one where temptation is minimal and clarity comes easily. We imagine holiness as a kind of smoothness, a steady forward motion without much interior resistance. But James begins somewhere else entirely. He does not say, “Blessed is the man who is never tempted.” Nor does he say, “Blessed is the man who finds temptation easy.” Instead, he says:

“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” (James 1:12).

That word—remains—carries weight. The blessing is not attached to the absence of struggle, but to the willingness to stay within it without turning away. It belongs to the one who holds fast when the pull toward something easier, something more immediately satisfying, becomes real.

There is actually relief in that, if we let ourselves receive it. The presence of temptation does not mean something has gone wrong or that we are failing. It means we are in the place where choice is possible. It means we are being invited, again and again, to say no to one thing and yes to another.

And that yes matters.

James ties the entire promise to love: “the crown of life… which God has promised to those who love him.” This is not about willpower for its own sake. It is not about proving something. It is about relationship. We resist temptation not primarily because we are strong, but because we love. And love, if it is real, expresses itself in preference. It chooses. It turns toward one thing and away from another. This is about being in relationship with God and wanting that relationship more than we want the satisfaction of whatever is tempting us.

There are many reasons people resist temptation. Some resist because they are afraid of consequences. Some because they do not want to be found out. Some because one disordered desire simply outweighs another. But James tells us something different: the only motive strong enough to sustain real fidelity is love for God. A greater love displaces the lesser one.

So the one who remains steadfast is not the one who feels nothing, but the one who loves something more.

Where Temptation Actually Begins

From there, James turns to something we are often reluctant to face directly:

“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” (James 1:13)

This is as much a correction as it is an instruction. There is something in us that wants to trace our struggle back to God, even in subtle ways. If not in words, then in implication. Why is this happening? Why would He allow this? What are you doing?

But James draws a clear line. God does not entice us to evil. He cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.

This is not new. Sirach says it just as plainly:

Do not say, “Because of the Lord I left the right way”;
for he[a] will not do what he hates.

Do not say, “It was he who led me astray”;
for he had no need of a sinful man.

The Lord hates all abominations,
and they are not loved by those who fear him. (Sirach 15:11-13)

The Lord hates what is evil. He does not collaborate with it. That means we have to look somewhere else for the source of any and all temptation.

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” (James 1:14)

That is a harder truth, but it’s the real truth. Temptation does not begin outside us as something foreign. It begins within, in desires that have not been fully ordered toward God. Something in us responds. Something in us leans. The language James uses is vivid enough to feel uncomfortable—lured, enticed—as though we are being drawn out by something that already has a hold on us.

And then he traces the progression with a kind of quiet inevitability: desire conceives, sin is born, and when it is fully grown, it brings forth death.

This is not dramatic for the sake of effect. It is descriptive. It tells the truth about how sin develops when it is left unchallenged. It rarely begins as something fully formed. It begins small, almost unnoticed, and then it grows.

Which is why it matters so much to go back to that earlier word: remain. Remain with God. Remain in the place where you can still choose. Because once desire is allowed to take root and grow unchecked, it becomes harder to see clearly.

“Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (James 1:15)

It helps to be reminded of James’ earlier warning about being double-minded. A divided heart—one that wants God and something else at the same time—becomes the perfect ground for this kind of enticement. We are pulled because we have not yet chosen fully. We waver because we are not anchored. And so the call is not simply to resist at the surface, but to become whole, to live from a single allegiance, rooted in God rather than in the shifting desires that cannot hold us.

The God Who Does Not Change

Into that reality, James places something solid:

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17)

We need that whole sentence more than we realize. If temptation arises within us and the world around us is unstable, we need to know that God is not. That his goodness is not shifting. That he is not one thing today and another tomorrow. That he is not—ever—working against us.

He is the Father of lights.

The sun rises and sets. The moon changes. The stars appear and disappear with the seasons. But God is not like the lights themselves. He is their source. There is no variation in him, no shadow, no turning. When it is dark here at night, it is because the earth has turned away from the light. When darkness comes in our lives–in our souls– it is not because he has changed. It is because something has turned away from the light. Someone has turned away from the light.

This becomes especially important when we try to discern what is “good.” Not everything that appears good in the moment is good in the deeper sense. A door we longed to have opened may lead us somewhere we should not go. A disappointment we resisted may become the place where grace takes hold.

Let’s talk about how much he loves us, and about how he wants us to “manage” anger.

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Today, we begin the study of James. I’m particularly excited about this because in many ways, James reaches directly into the heart of the Take Up & Read mission: to weave Sacrament and Word seamlessly into every facet of our lives. We refuse to allow faith to remain theoretical, detached from the ordinary rhythms and real trials of daily life. Instead, what we know to be true about God and about how he created us drives who we are, how we act, how we speak, and how we listen. James’ letter feels uncannily addressed to us. It carries the cadence of wisdom literature—short, piercing assertions that are grounded in real life, not abstract. It is a letter that insists, from beginning to end, that what we believe must take visible shape in how we live. There is no room here for a divided life.

James himself is a fitting guide. Tradition remembers him as a man of extraordinary prayer, his knees hardened like those of a camel from long hours spent before God. It remembers, too, his martyrdom—thrown from the temple and beaten, even as he prayed for those who killed him. This is not a man offering abstract counsel. This is a man who has lived what he writes. And what he writes begins, strikingly, not with comfort but with a command.

Count it all joy.

Count it all joy when trials come. James is realistic. He doesn’t couch words. He doesn’t say if trials come, but when. There’s no sugarcoating here. We can’t count trials as joyful because they feel joyful; we count them as joyful because they are purposeful. James does not pretend that suffering is pleasant, nor does he suggest that we should enjoy it. Instead, he insists that trials are not meaningless, painful interruptions of a good life, but instruments permitted by God to produce something we cannot produce on our own: steadfastness. Faithful patience.

This steadfastness unfolds slowly, like something cultivated with both love and work. If we allow it to have its full effect, it leads to a kind of interior wholeness—“perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”James speaks the language of formation.

Left to ourselves, we do not move toward holiness under pressure. We move toward irritation, toward fear, toward the sneaky erosion of trust. Frankly, we move toward crises of faith, especially when times of trial stretch into seasons or even years. We question God. We look for escape. We are tempted, not only by sin, but by the very weight of the cross we have been given to carry.

James directs us, with clear forthrightness, to what we actually need in the midst of trial. Despite our proclivity to curiositas, it’s not more information. It’s not a Google search or deep dive into ChatGPT. What we really need is wisdom, not knowledge.

I wrote about this search for answers a couple of weeks ago, and it struck me to see it here in James as I prepared the study. Clearly, we need to be reminded of this over and over as we are bombarded by information.

We’ve trained ourselves to search for answers—quickly, efficiently, transactionally. We ask, refine, and expect clarity on demand. That works for simple things. But when the questions are deeper—about suffering, relationships, or who we are—the answers don’t come that way. We are so programmed to seek and find quick answers that even when it’s not really a quick answer we need, we keep searching, and underneath it all, there’s a kind of desperation. We want certainty. We want a resolution. We want to quantify and solidify responses.

But faith asks for a different posture.

James says the one who doubts is like a wave, driven and tossed by the wind. That’s what happens when we keep searching for answers we can quantify and control—always adjusting, always unsettled, never anchored.

The answer to our deepest questions isn’t information we can retrieve. It’s the Resurrection.

Not a technique, or a formula, or a recipe, or a regimen. A reality: Christ is risen.

And if that’s true, then everything changes—not because all our questions are resolved, but because they are reframed. Suffering isn’t meaningless. Failure isn’t final. Redemption is always possible.

Faith, then, is not about finding the perfect answer. It’s about standing on this one truth and trusting it, even when we don’t yet understand.

No more searching; simply trusting. Of course, though it may be simple, trust is far from easy. James knows this, but still he urges wisdom. Wisdom:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach.” (James 1:5)

There is something profoundly consoling in that phrase: without reproach. We are not scolded for our need. We are not disparaged for our confusion. We are invited to ask. And we are also warned. We must ask in faith. Not in the restless, grasping posture that seeks to control the outcome, but in a posture that trusts the Giver. Because the one who doubts—who attempts to stand with one foot in trust and the other in self-reliance—becomes unstable. Like a wave. Like a life that is constantly adjusting but never rooted.

And here, perhaps, is where James confronts us most directly. We are not merely lacking answers. We are often divided within ourselves. We want God, and we want control. We want faith, and we want guarantees. We want heaven, but we are reluctant to release our grip on earth. James calls this what it is: double-mindedness. Two-souled living. A divided interior life that cannot sustain peace. The invitation, then, is not to search harder, but to stand differently. Not searching. Trusting.

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I have attended several Stations of the Cross this Lent. My daughter, Sarah, has been singing the Stabat Mater repeatedly at our parish and in our homeschool co-op. The one last week was a Living Stations. It was the most moving, prayerful experience of the Passion I’ve ever had–right there in a very old gym with falling apart curtains on the stage, uneven lighting, and unpredictable baby noises. Teenagers I know well—children who have sat at my kitchen counter, students I have taught and laughed with—stepped into the roles of Christ, of Mary, of those who followed Him to Calvary.

Sometimes, we read the Passion as a sequence of events: a legal proceeding, a physical ordeal, a march toward death. But this time–with my daughter singing a soulful solo at the crucifixion as one of the dearest boys I’ve ever known “hung” there, and her best friend waited to gather Christ’s body into her arms–I was struck by something else.

At nearly every place where the suffering becomes most acute, a woman appears. She is not going to stop it. She can’t possibly fix it, heal it, or make it go away. She is there to accompany the suffering. She comforts, consoles, and enters in.

While a voice that is dearer to me than any other sang pure, wordless notes, I thought to myself that we don’t really have words for this moment, this kind of accompaniment. And yet we do accompany.

Women do. We have a gift for it.

Pope St. John Paul II, in Mulieris Dignitatem, writes that women have a particular “genius” for the human person—an attentiveness to the person in suffering, a capacity to remain present where others withdraw. The Passion reveals this not as sentiment, but as participation in the mystery of redemption.

Because what we see in these women is not weakness. It is a particular kind of strength:

The strength to remain present when love cannot change the outcome.

Think on that a minute. How often do we want to change the outcome? How often are we called instead to simply remain?

The reflection that follows comes from a live Women of the Bible study I taught this week, tracing the presence of women through the Stations of the Cross. Typically, these live sessions—and their recordings—are reserved for Take Up and Read members.

But this one feels different.

As we enter Holy Week, I want to offer it to everyone.

You will find the full teaching below. I’ve taken my talking notes and endeavored to make them a readable narrative. I encourage you not to rush through it. At the very end, I’ve included the audio and video from our time together. Set aside a quiet hour if you can. Listen. Watch. Pray with it. Let it accompany you as we walk toward Easter.

The Silence Before the Road

Jesus is Condemned to Death

(Luke 23:13–25)

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. 16 I will therefore punish and release him.”

But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas”— a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder. Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus, but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed. So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.

The Gospels do not name any women here, but they tell us they are present. Luke records:

“And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things. (Luke 23:49).

The women are witnesses—not only at the end, but throughout.

St. Augustine reminds us that the Passion unfolds not as a tragedy of human failure alone, but as the outworking of divine providence: “The Lord’s Passion was our hope; in it we learn how much God loves us” (Sermon 218).

And yet, at the human level, what unfolds here is injustice.

Christ is condemned despite innocence. The crowd chooses Barabbas. Pilate capitulates.

And love must watch.

This is the beginning of the Cross—not the wood, but the helplessness.

St. Gregory the Great notes that God often permits what He does not will in order to bring about a greater good. But that does not lessen the anguish of those who must witness it.

We know this place. As women, we have been here as we witness the anguish of a child choosing a destructive path, or a body failing despite every effort, or a relationship unraveling, even as we pray harder.

The Cross begins with the stripping away of control.

Jesus Takes Up His Cross & Falls the First Time

The Fathers consistently interpret Isaiah 53 not only as prophecy, but as revelation: Christ does not merely carry a cross; He carries the weight of human sin and suffering.

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4–6)

St. Athanasius writes that in the Incarnation, Christ “takes to Himself what is ours in order to give us what is His.” The Cross is the culmination of that exchange.

And yet, at this point, no one steps forward.

John 19:17:

and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

This absence is also instructive, because there are moments when love must wait—not because it is indifferent, but because it does not control the unfolding.

Sometimes being still is harder than entering in and trying to make something happen.

Jesus Meets His Mother

(Luke 2:34–35; John 19:25)

Simeon’s prophecy comes to fulfillment:

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:34–35).

The Greek word for “pierce” (ῥομφαία) indicates not a small wound, but a devastating, penetrating grief.

The Church has long understood Mary here as the New Eve, standing beside the New Adam. Where Eve participated in the fall, Mary participates in redemption—not as a redeemer, but as one who consents fully to God’s will.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux writes:

“Truly, O blessed Mother, a sword has pierced your soul. For only by passing through your soul could it reach the flesh of your Son. When your Jesus—whom you loved more than yourself—had breathed forth His spirit, the cruel lance did not touch His soul, but it did pierce yours. His soul was no longer there, but yours could not be torn away. Therefore, the violence of sorrow pierced your soul, so that we may rightly call you more than martyr, because in you the suffering of compassion surpassed even the suffering of the flesh.” (from Sermon on the Twelve Stars, also associated with his reflections on Mary’s sorrows)

Mary does not intervene. She does not resist. She does not turn away.

She sees this unfold up close. She doesn’t leave it. She’s fully present.

And in that seeing, she consents again to what she first accepted at the Annunciation: “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

This is active surrender.

The Catechism quotes Lumen Gentium in CCC 964

“Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. “This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death”; it is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion:

Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: “Woman, behold your son.” (CCC 964).

There is so much depth for us to ponder. Mary reveals the difference between resignation (giving up) and surrender (entrusting). They are not at all alike, yet we confuse them all the time!

Mary has not abandoned Jesus. She has entrusted Him—and herself—to the Father.

Simon of Cyrene Helps Carry the Cross

“And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.”(Mark 15:21)

St. Mark names Simon’s sons—Alexander and Rufus—suggesting that this moment bore fruit beyond the moment itself. The Fathers often interpret Simon as an image of discipleship: one who is drawn, even unwillingly at first, into participation in Christ’s suffering. And his service impacted generations for Christ.

And here is the theological truth: God distributes the weight of the Cross.

St. Paul will later write:

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.” (Galatians 6:2).

Most women instinctively pour into people and build them up. Women are to be generative, to be creative in the truest sense of the word. If someone falls into sin, we restore them. We forgive them. We don’t beat them over their heads with their faults.

Chances are, we will soon need forgiveness as well.

We reach down and build each other up. We share their burdens.

But sometimes, it’s Simon’s turn. Wisdom means discernment. Women often assume: “If I do not carry this, no one will.” But Simon stands as a correction:

You are not the only one God appoints.

Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus (Tradition)

Though not recorded in Scripture, this act is deeply consonant with the Gospel. It’s always interesting to me to see what scripture is chosen to accompany this station. Last week, for our Living Stations, the accompanying scripture verses from Sirach, which also served as the inspiration and foundation for our Take Up & Read Study, True Friend. I admit I smiled to myself at what felt like a God wink.

From Sirach:

A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter:

he that has found one has found a treasure.

There is nothing so precious as a faithful friend,

and no scales can measure his excellence.

A faithful friend is an elixir of life;

and those who fear the Lord will find him. (Sirach 6:14-16)

Christ Himself says:

“As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

Veronica embodies this truth.

She does not rescue him. She cares for him. She honors him. She is reverent.

The tradition that His image remains on her veil is theologically rich: the one who contemplates Christ in suffering is conformed to Him.

St. Augustine writes that we become what we behold.

“If you are the Body of Christ and his members, it is your mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table; it is your mystery that you receive.
To that which you are, you respond ‘Amen,’ and by responding you assent.
For you hear, ‘The Body of Christ,’ and you answer, ‘Amen.’
Be what you see; receive what you are.”

— Sermon 272

Augustine is teaching that in the Eucharist:

• We behold the Body of Christ

• We receive the Body of Christ

• And we are called to become the Body of Christ

Acts of tender compassion are not peripheral to redemption; they are participation in it.

Second Fall & Women of Jerusalem

“And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:27–31)

This is the only station where Jesus directly addresses women on the road. And His words are striking:

“Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”

St. John Chrysostom explains that Christ is not rejecting their compassion, but purifying it. He redirects them from emotional reaction to moral and spiritual awareness. He does not forbid them to weep, but He shows that their weeping should be for their own sins, for the punishment that was coming upon them. He leads them away from mourning for Him to mourning for themselves.

Christ is calling women to something more. This is so Catholic! He’s pointing to redemptive suffering. He wants them to move beyond the sorrow that remains external to a sorrow that leads to conversion.

St. Paul will later distinguish:

“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

It is possible to feel deeply, to grieve deeply, and yet remain unchanged. Christ calls these women—and us—to allow sorrow to become transformation.

The Third Fall

At this point, Christ is utterly spent.

St. Thomas Aquinas notes that Christ willed to experience the full extremity of human weakness—not because He lacked strength, but because He chose to descend fully into our condition. (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 46)

And here, no one intervenes, because the work of redemption must be completed.

Stripped, Nailed, Crucified

“ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says,

“They divided my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.”

So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”(John 19:23–30)

The word “standing” is crucial. We need to read this slowly and carefully and think about what the implications are in the word “standing.” They are not collapsed in despair. They are not fleeing.

They are standing—stabat mater.

The Church has meditated on this for centuries. The medieval hymn captures it:

“Stabat Mater dolorosa
Juxta crucem lacrimosa…”

“At the Cross her station keeping,

Stood the mournful Mother weeping,

Close to Jesus to the last.”

St. John Paul II writes that Mary’s presence at the Cross is a continuation of her fiat—a participation in the redemptive suffering of Christ. In Redemptoris Mater 18:

day by day there was fulfilled in her the blessing uttered by Elizabeth at the Visitation: “Blessed is she who believed.”

This blessing reaches its full meaning when Mary stands beneath the Cross of her Son (cf. Jn. 19:25). The Council says that this happened “not without a divine plan”: by “suffering deeply with her only-begotten Son and joining herself with her maternal spirit to his sacrifice, lovingly consenting to the immolation of the victim to whom she had given birth,” in this way Mary “faithfully preserved her union with her Son even to the Cross.” It is a union through faith- the same faith with which she had received the angel’s revelation at the Annunciation. At that moment she had also heard the words: “He will be great...and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk. 1:32-33).

And now, standing at the foot of the Cross, Mary is the witness, humanly speaking, of the complete negation of these words. On that wood of the Cross her Son hangs in agony as one condemned. “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows...he was despised, and we esteemed him not”: as one destroyed (cf. Is. 53:3- 5). How great, how heroic then is the obedience of faith shown by Mary in the face of God’s “unsearchable judgments”! How completely she “abandons herself to God” without reserve, offering the full assent of the intellect and the will” to him whose “ways are inscrutable” (cf. Rom. 11:33)! And how powerful too is the action of grace in her soul, how all-pervading is the influence of the Holy Spirit and of his light and power!

Through this faith Mary is perfectly united with Christ in his self- emptying. For “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men”: precisely on Golgotha “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (cf. Phil. 2:5-8). At the foot of the Cross Mary shares through faith in the shocking mystery of this self- emptying. This is perhaps the deepest “kenosis” of faith in human history. Through faith the Mother shares in the death of her Son, in his redeeming death; but in contrast with the faith of the disciples who fled, hers was far more enlightened. On Golgotha, Jesus through the Cross definitively confirmed that he was the “sign of contradiction” foretold by Simeon. At the same time, there were also fulfilled on Golgotha the words which Simeon had addressed to Mary: “and a sword will pierce through your own soul also.”

Mary Magdalene, too, stands as a witness transformed. St. Gregory the Great famously identifies her as the one who “loved much” (cf. Luke 7:47), and therefore remains when others flee. To simply stand there at the Cross is not passivity. It is formidable strength. It is entirely active. It is fidelity under suffering.

Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross: The Weight of Love

The tradition of the Pietà captures something Scripture leaves implicit, but the Church has always contemplated: the body of Christ placed in the arms of His mother.

Here, love receives what it cannot restore. About this station, one of the women in our live session spoke into our hearts in a profound way. First, she told us she thinks that Mary was probably the first to walk the Station of the Cross. She imagines her retracing their steps on Holy Saturday. Then, she offered something deeply personal. Martha is a widow. She talked about the weight of her husband’s body after he died. The actual, physical weight of him, how heavy he was in her arms. How different it felt from any other kind of holding. And as she spoke, I could feel myself sink into the grief of that. Because this wasn’t just about Mary holding Jesus. It was about all the ways we are asked to hold what has been lost. To receive what we cannot restore and to carry, even briefly, the full weight of love when it no longer feels alive in the way we knew it.

That is the Pietà. Not just a sculpture. Not just a moment in salvation history. But something that echoes in the life of a woman.

St. Bernard reflects that Mary’s sorrow is united to Christ’s sacrifice—not as equal, but as intimately joined. This is grief that is not meaningless. It is grief that participates in redemption.

Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud 60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. (Matthew 27:59–61)

They remain.

St. Bede, in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke, notes that their lingering presence reveals both love and faith: love, because they do not leave Him; faith, because they return even when hope seems extinguished. The women who had followed Jesus remained near the tomb, observing where He was laid, so that they might return and minister to Him. In this, they show both faithful devotion and loving diligence.

It is crucial to bear in mind that we know the rest of the story. They did not.

They do not yet know the Resurrection.

The Catechism reminds us:

“In the darkness of Holy Saturday, Christ descended into the realm of the dead” (CCC 632).

For them, this is not a pause. It is an ending. And still—they remain. The women of the Cross teach us how to live within the suffering, not how to remove suffering.

Scripture, Tradition, The Fathers, and the Church together reveal that the presence of the women is not incidental—it is participatory. They are not outside the mystery of redemption; they are drawn into it through fidelity, compassion, and surrender.

They show us:

• How to entrust what we cannot control

• How to offer love that does not fix

• How to allow sorrow to become conversion

• How to remain when everything in us wants to flee

And most importantly, they reveal that presence—faithful, suffering, steadfast presence—is a form of participation in Christ’s redemptive work.

Things to think about this week:

1. Where in my life am I being invited to enter into “Mary’s surrender”—to entrust what I cannot change?

2. Where am I trying to carry what God may be asking someone else to bear?

3. Is my sorrow leading me toward conversion, or keeping me in place?

4. What would it look like for me to stand—faithfully, prayerfully—at the place God has asked me to remain?

Here is the audio:

Further notes from the live:

A link to pray the seven sorrows of Mary

A Scriptural Rosary

Another link to Scriptural Rosary (not an Apple link)

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Holy Week by Dr Brant Pitre

I call them casserole sufferings. They are sufferings that gather a community around them, pain that announces itself plainly and invites response. They are the kinds of sorrows into which we accept casseroles and sympathy, graciously receive kind texts and earnest prayers, and take some solace in the reassurance that we are not alone. The women who suffer are seen, named, and, in some measure, share the burden with a community that cares.

But there are other sufferings that do not call attention to themselves. No one brings a casserole. The sorrows settle into the fabric of a life and remain there, often for years, sometimes for decades. They do not lend themselves to easy explanation, nor do they invite intervention or commiseration in any straightforward way. Over time, they become familiar not only to the one who bears them, but to those around her. It is understood, in a vague and imprecise way, that something is wrong, but not urgent, not new, not fixable. And so the suffering is carried quietly, largely unaccompanied, absorbed into the ordinary rhythm of daily existence.

There is yet another kind of isolated suffering borne by the woman who helps carry a load for someone else. If she were to reveal what is heavy and life-changing about this suffering in her own life, it would jeopardize the person she carries. And so, she trudges very much alone, bumbling along however awkwardly, continuing under her own strength.

Some of us carry our burdens while appearing strong and fully engaged, in pain for decades, even as we function in the world. And some of us know what it is to feel cut off—to live on the edges of our own lives by some necessity, suffering alone.

The Woman with the Hemorrhage speaks to both kinds of suffering.

The Gospel gives us a woman whose life has been shaped by how her culture views a woman with an affliction. She has not entirely withdrawn from the world, but neither is she able to move through it freely. She endures, rather than lives, her days marked by a condition that has drained her body, exhausted her resources, and placed her on the margin of her community. She has spent every cent she has. She has tried everything available to her. She has suffered more than anyone can fully see. And still, she is no better, but rather worse. Beneath whatever composure she has managed to maintain lies a deep depletion and a loneliness that has settled into her bones.

For twelve years, her life has been organized around separation. The law that governs her world makes clear that a woman in her condition is unclean, and that everything she touches becomes unclean as well. This is not merely a matter of private inconvenience; it is a condition that shapes every aspect of her daily existence. Physical contact becomes fraught. Participation in communal worship is restricted. Ordinary social interactions are complicated by the constant awareness that her presence would carry consequences for others. So she stays away. Over time, her life narrows. Relationships grow strained or distant. The spaces in which she can move with ease become fewer and fewer. Her suffering, though publicly known, is privately borne, and she finds herself living not at the center of communal life, but at its edges. (see Leviticus 15:19-31—it’s truly something!)

It is important to see clearly that this is not only a medical condition, but a form of social and spiritual exile. She is not simply ill; she is isolated. She is not merely weakened; she is set apart. And yet, within this constrained life, she has not ceased to seek relief. The Gospel is careful to tell us that she has suffered under many physicians and has spent all that she had in pursuit of healing. She has not been passive. She has not resigned herself without resistance. She has done what responsible, determined women do: she has sought help, invested resources, and continued to hope, even as that hope has been repeatedly disappointed.

There is something deeply human, and deeply painful, in the insistence that her efforts have only made things worse. The very means by which she sought restoration have contributed to her depletion. What was meant to heal has, in some measure, harmed. And so she arrives at a place that many of us recognize, though we might describe it differently: the place where effort has reached its limit, where striving no longer produces the desired result, where the familiar strategies for managing life begin to fail.

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In the closing chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans—one of the most theologically profound texts in the New Testament—the apostle pauses for a moment of gratitude. After pages of dense theological argument about sin, grace, salvation, and the destiny of Israel, he turns to greetings. Names appear one after another, each belonging to someone who helped sustain the fragile, expanding life of the early Church. Among them is a married couple.

“Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life.”

The line passes quickly, almost unnoticed in such a long list. Yet the sentence opens a window onto one of the most compelling marriages in the New Testament. Priscilla and Aquila never preach a recorded sermon. No epistle bears their names. They stand neither among the Twelve nor among the great missionary figures whose journeys dominate the Acts of the Apostles. Still, the story of the early Church cannot be told without them.

Through a handful of scriptural glimpses, we discover a marriage shaped by faith, courage, hospitality, intellectual generosity, and a shared devotion to the Gospel. Their life together reveals something essential about Christian vocation: that the mission of the Church does not unfold only through apostles and martyrs, but through ordinary households that intentionally place their lives at the disposal of Christ.

Priscilla’s story invites us to consider what happens when a marriage becomes oriented toward something larger than itself.

Refugees and Tentmakers

The first time we meet Priscilla is in the eighteenth chapter of Acts. Paul has recently left Athens and arrived in the bustling city of Corinth, a place of commerce, cultural exchange, and moral complexity. There, he encounters a Jewish couple newly arrived from Italy: Aquila, a native of Pontus, and his wife, Priscilla.

Their presence in Corinth is not the result of careful planning but of political upheaval. The Roman emperor Claudius had issued an edict expelling Jews from Rome around A.D. 49, forcing many families to abandon their homes and livelihoods. Priscilla and Aquila were among those displaced by this decree. They arrived in Corinth as refugees, compelled to begin again in unfamiliar surroundings.

Priscilla and Aquila became “work friends” with St. Paul. All three worked as tentmakers, craftsmen skilled in shaping leather and fabric into sturdy shelters for travelers and merchants throughout the Roman world. Paul joined the couple in their labor, and what began as a practical arrangement soon grew into one of the most consequential friendships in the New Testament.

It is striking that the first meeting between Paul and this couple takes place not in a synagogue or a dramatic moment of evangelization but in the ordinary setting of shared work. The early Church often took root in such environments. Workshops, marketplaces, homes, and dinner tables were where conversations about faith unfolded and where relationships formed that would eventually shape the future of Christian communities.

At some point during this period, Priscilla and Aquila embraced the Gospel. Whether Paul himself led them to faith or whether they were already believers when he arrived remains uncertain. What is clear is that their lives were deeply intertwined with the apostle's missionary work.

Years later, Paul would refer to them as “my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.”

The phrase reveals how he regarded them. They were not merely supporters or benefactors. They were collaborators in the work of the Gospel.

A Marriage in the Mission of the Church

An intriguing detail appears in the way Scripture presents this couple. In several passages of the New Testament, Priscilla’s name precedes her husband’s. In the ancient world, such an inversion would have been unusual. Social conventions typically placed the husband’s name first, reflecting the structure of the household and the public prominence of men in civic life.

Yet Luke, the author of Acts, sometimes writes “Priscilla and Aquila.”

The reversal has prompted centuries of reflection among scholars. Some suggest that Priscilla may have possessed particular gifts in theological understanding or teaching. Others speculate that she may have belonged to a prominent Roman family, her name “Prisca” associated with an old and respected lineage. Still others see Luke’s ordering as a literary choice, intended to draw attention to her significant role in the unfolding story of the Church.

Whatever the precise explanation, Scripture consistently presents the couple together. They are never mentioned apart from one another. Their lives move in tandem across the pages of the New Testament. They travel with Paul. They share their home with believers. They instruct others in the faith. They endure danger together.

Their marriage is not depicted as a hierarchy of competing roles but as a partnership directed toward the service of Christ. This unity becomes particularly evident in the account of Apollos.

Teaching the Teacher

Acts introduces Apollos as an extraordinary figure. He is a Jew from Alexandria, a city renowned for learning and intellectual life. Luke describes him as eloquent, fervent in spirit, and thoroughly versed in the Scriptures. His preaching demonstrates both passion and skill, and he speaks boldly in the synagogue.

Yet his understanding of the Gospel remains incomplete. Apollos knows the baptism of John, but has not yet grasped the full significance of Christ’s redemptive work.

When Priscilla and Aquila hear him speak, they recognize both his potential and his need for deeper instruction. Rather than correcting him publicly or challenging him before others, they invite him into conversation and explain “the way of God more accurately.”

The scene reveals a remarkable moment in the life of the early Church. A brilliant and gifted preacher receives theological formation not from an apostle but from a married couple who take the time to guide him patiently.

Their intervention bears fruit. Apollos later becomes a powerful defender of the faith, vigorously proclaiming the Gospel and strengthening believers throughout the region.

The episode offers a glimpse of how Christian formation often unfolds. The growth of the Church has always depended not only on dramatic missionary preaching but also on the careful work of believers who devote themselves to shaping others' understanding.

When a House Becomes a Church

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For two weeks, we have lived inside the tension of Ruth’s story.

We sat beside Naomi in Ruth 1 as she returned to Bethlehem, her grief emptying her, her speech narrowed to the language of loss. She had buried her husband and both her sons. She stood again on familiar soil, but she was no longer the same woman who had left. “Call me Mara,” she said, “for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20). She did not deny God, but she experienced Him through the lens of devastation. “I went away full,” she said, “and the Lord has brought me back empty” (Ruth 1:21).

This was not the way she envisioned it all turning out. This was not the way she wrote her narrative in her head.

We watched Ruth bind herself to Naomi through covenant love in Ruth 1 and 2, choosing loyalty when she had every reasonable excuse to leave. And we followed Ruth into Ruth 3, where she entrusted her future to the covenant structure of redemption, asking Boaz to act as redeemer—not through manipulation or control, but through humble appeal.

At the end of that chapter, nothing had been resolved yet. Boaz had spoken kindly. He had promised to act righteously. But there was still uncertainty. Another redeemer stood closer in the line of succession. Ruth returned home with the promise of provision, but without resolution.

And this is often where we live.

Faithful. Obedient. Hopeful. Maybe even courageous.

And still waiting.

Ruth chapter 4 shows us what only God can do. Not erase grief. Not undo loss. But redeem it. To bring forth life not instead of sorrow, but from within it. I think it’s one of those things we learn along the way: sorrow can be life-giving. But it’s a hard lesson and one that comes with pain. It’s also a lesson we can miss if we’re open to receiving it.

Redemption Happens in the Light

Ruth 4 opens not in secrecy, but in the city gate. Boaz goes there deliberately and sits down, waiting. The gate was not simply an entrance; it was the legal and civic center of ancient Israel. It was where disputes were settled, contracts witnessed, and covenant obligations fulfilled publicly (see Deuteronomy 21:19 and Proverbs 31:23). Redemption was not a private emotional decision. It was a public covenant act.

When the nearer redeemer arrives, Boaz presents the opportunity to redeem Naomi’s land (Ruth 4:3–4). Initially, the man agrees. Land meant stability, inheritance, and future security. But Boaz then reveals the full nature of redemption: acquiring the land also means marrying Ruth, the widow, in order to preserve the family lineage (Ruth 4:5).

At that moment, the man declines. “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance” (Ruth 4:6).

His response reveals an essential aspect of redemption. Redemption always costs something. (Grace is unearned; redemption always costs something.*) The nearer redeemer calculates the cost and decides it is too great. Boaz, by contrast, embraces it.

Boaz publicly declares before the elders and witnesses: “You are witnesses this day that I have bought from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech… Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance” (Ruth 4:9–10).

Boaz is not merely securing a marriage. He is restoring a family line. He is ensuring that Naomi’s story does not end in extinction.

Redemption, in Scripture, always moves in both directions. It restores what lies ahead, but it also redeems what lies behind.

When God Fills What Grief Emptied

Ruth 4:13–17 contains one of the most tender reversals in all of Scripture.

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Last week, we sat with Naomi in the first chapter of Ruth and listened carefully to the language of grief. She had buried her husband. She had buried both her sons. She returned to Bethlehem not as the woman who left, but as someone fundamentally altered by loss. Her words were stark and unguarded: “Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20). She did not deny God. She did not renounce Him. But she experienced Him as distant, even opposed. “I went away full,” she said, “and the Lord has brought me back empty” (Ruth 1:21).

It is important to notice that Naomi spoke these words while Ruth was standing beside her.

Grief had narrowed her vision so completely that she could no longer recognize the presence of mercy already given. Because Ruth was mercy—not mercy that erased loss or restored what had been taken, but mercy that remained. And this week, we turn our attention to Ruth, not as a secondary figure in Naomi’s story, but as a woman whose choices reveal something essential about covenant love, spiritual courage, and the way God’s kindness often arrives quietly, embodied in human fidelity rather than dramatic intervention.

God’s answer to Naomi’s emptiness did not arrive first as a changed circumstance. It arrived as a person who refused to leave.

In Ruth 1:6–18, Naomi makes the long journey home after hearing that the famine in Judah has ended and that “the Lord had visited his people and given them food.” But somewhere along the road, Naomi stops and urges her daughters-in-law to turn back. She blesses them tenderly and urges them to seek new husbands, new homes, and new futures. Her words are not manipulative. They are protective. Naomi believes she has nothing left to offer them but hardship. She releases them because she sees herself as a burden, not a blessing.

This is one of grief’s quiet deceptions. It persuades us that our emptiness disqualifies us from being loved. It convinces us that the most loving thing we can do is step aside, so others will not be dragged into our sorrow.

Orpah eventually returns to Moab, and Scripture does not condemn her for it. Her decision is understandable. She chooses stability, familiarity, and the possibility of rebuilding her life within her own people. But Ruth does something else. Ruth clings.

The Hebrew word used in Ruth 1:14 is the same word used in Genesis 2:24 to describe the covenant bond of marriage. It is not the language of convenience. It is the language of irrevocable attachment. Ruth is not responding to Naomi’s strength, because Naomi has none. She is responding to covenant itself. She binds herself not to Naomi’s past or Naomi’s stability, but to Naomi’s vulnerability.

When Naomi urges her again to turn back, Ruth speaks words that echo across centuries: “Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). This is more than an expression of affection. It is an act of conversion. Ruth renounces her homeland, her cultural identity, and the religious framework of her childhood. She entrusts herself fully to Naomi’s God, not after circumstances improve, but before they do. She steps into covenant without guarantees.

This is the first glimpse we see of Ruth’s spiritual strength. She does not wait for clarity. She does not wait for security. She chooses fidelity first and allows her life to unfold within it.

When they arrive in Bethlehem, Ruth immediately begins to act.

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There is a moment in Ruth that feels almost too honest for polite Bible study.

Naomi walks back into Bethlehem after burying her husband and both sons. The women of the town gather. They recognize her. They say her name.

And she answers (Ruth 1:20–21):

“Do not call me Naomi. Call me Mara… I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty.”

She renames herself.

Not Pleasant, not Sweetness.
Now she is Bitter.

If we rush past that moment, we miss something essential. We miss the raw moment when a woman is so broken by the grief of the very hard things that have happened to her that she becomes someone else entirely. This is not sentimental Scripture. This is covenant grief.

Why Naomi’s Bitterness Matters

The book opens in the days of the judges (Ruth 1:1), a time of instability and spiritual chaos. Famine drives Naomi’s family from Bethlehem— House of Bread”— into Moab. Her husband dies. Her sons marry Moabite women; they are “forbidden women.” Then her sons die.

Widowhood. Exile. Childlessness.

In the ancient world, that combination wasn’t merely sad. It was socially catastrophic and threatened her very existence.

Grief here is not just emotional. It destabilizes her identity.

And Naomi interprets it theologically. In Ruth 1:13 she says:

“The hand of the Lord has gone out against me.”

Notice what she does not say.

She does not say:

• God is unjust.

• God is cruel.

• I reject Him.

She stays inside covenant language. It is so important to notice that she is still in a relationship with her Lord, despite her pain, despite the objectively difficult things she is enduring.

She calls Him “the Almighty.” She returns to Bethlehem, to Israel, to the Promised Land.

She remains within the people of God.

This is not apostasy. It is lament.

Namoi teaches us how to lament and still stay in the friendship of God.

Lament Inside the Relationship

Biblical lament always holds two truths at once:

God is sovereign.
This hurts terribly.

You see it in Job (Job 1:21).
You see it in Lamentations (Lamentations 3).
You see it in the Psalms again and again.

The Church is not against lament. Indeed, it is encoded in our liturgy. In her wisdom, the Church knows that we need to know how to lament.

Naomi stands in that stream of two things: God’s sovereignty and life’s pain.

Her grief is raw, but it is relationally intact. She believes God is involved.
She just experiences that involvement as opposition. And here is where we must look so carefully at her example and see what God has there for us.

Because many women in our own day stand in similar spaces.

“I did everything right — why did my marriage collapse?”

“We raised them in the Church — why are they estranged?”

“I sacrificed everything — why am I alone?”

This can sound like entitlement language. We want to demand of God why our “goodness” does not return the easy, pleasant life to us.

But in Naomi’s case, the questioning is bewildered covenant sorrow.

Naomi is not shaking her fist. She is trying to make sense of devastation within a theology of providence. Bewilderment is understandable. But be careful, Naomi’s story warns, to be bewildered in the presence of God.

For a time, grief narrows Naomi’s vision.

The Narrowing of Identity

In chapter 1, her language is absolute:

Full / Empty
Against me
Brought calamity
Call me Bitter

She fuses event and identity.

She does not merely feel bitter.

She becomes Bitter.

And here is the striking detail:

She says “I am empty” while Ruth is standing beside her. Grief has constricted her perception so completely that she cannot yet interpret Ruth as fullness.

That is psychologically profound. It’s spiritually profound

Suffering collapses vision.

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Here are notes from today’s Take Up & Read Bible study.

There are stories in Scripture that begin with a trumpeting introduction—heroic people, holy people, obvious saints.

And then there is Rahab.

Rahab is messy. She’s a poster child for a woman who should be very concerned about generational trauma. (Spoiler: she is literally at root of the Jesse tree.)

This is one of the reasons her story lands so personally for so many women: it’s not a tidy beginning. It’s not a respectable beginning. It’s not even a “church lady” beginning.

And yet mercy finds her anyway.

Read: Joshua 2:1–7

Joshua sends two spies secretly—a wise decision, especially in light of the earlier disaster of the public spy mission in Numbers 13. Israel is poised on the edge of the Promised Land. Jericho is fortified. Fear fills the region.

The spies go to Rahab’s house.

Throughout Christian history, interpreters have felt embarrassed by this. Some have tried to claim Rahab was merely an “innkeeper,” but Hebrews 11:31 confirms she was, in fact, a prostitute.

And still, note what the text carefully avoids: it does not imply a sexual liaison.

Rahab’s house was a strategic place to stay if one wanted to remain anonymous despite strict guards. No one asks questions when men come and go.

And this is where God begins.

Rahab is introduced by her sin.
But God does not introduce her by her future.
He introduces her where she is.

Rahab hides the spies. She misdirects the king’s men. She protects them at tremendous risk.

The ancient Near East had strong traditions of hospitality and protecting guests—but Rahab goes far beyond cultural expectations. She risks her life. This not a small thing. When Rahab hid the spies, she sided with Israel against her own people. It was an act of treason!

And yes—Rahab lies.

Scripture reports it. It does not excuse it. It does not praise it.

Rahab faces an ethical crisis: either path involves wrongdoing. She decides it is worse to betray the spies than to lie about their presence.

And then something deeper becomes clear:

Despite her pagan upbringing, her culture, and her morally compromised profession, she allies herself with Israel—and with the God of Israel.

Rahab is:

• A Canaanite (outside the covenant)

• A woman (without civic power)

• A prostitute (morally compromised)

• Living in a house built into the city wall (on the margins)

And yet the spies go to her house.

Providence is already moving.

Before Rahab acts in faith, God has arranged the encounter.

“Divine providence consists of the dispositions by which God guides all his creatures.” (CCC 321)

Rahab’s story begins not with her reaching for God, but with God entering her world. She doesn’t ask for God before God comes to her. This is not a mere political allegiance shift. It’s a conversion story.

“Man is free when his actions are deliberate.” (CCC 1731)

Rahab chooses.

Discuss

• Where has God entered your story before you consciously reached for Him?

• Rahab had a clearly defined (though messy) life. She was a prostitute living in a pagan Jericho where occult idols were worshipped. Then, these spies appear and ask her to think of herself differently? She has one vision of herself, and they want her to consider a different one? They want to put a different label on her. Do you define yourself by your past labels?

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This is a recording of a recent Take Up & Read bible study—one that unfolded with particular grace and depth.

In this session, we explored how we are formed over time by what we give our attention to, through the lives of Hannah, Elizabeth, and Anna—three women whose faith was shaped not by urgency or spectacle, but by prayer, patience, and long fidelity. Together, we reflected on how waiting is not empty time, but rather an active process of formation, and how the choices we make about what we welcome into our days quietly shape who we become.

We talked about what it feels like to be disappointed and discouraged when life doesn’t unfold the way you envisioned it. We discussed the temptation to succumb to bitterness, despair, or resentment. And we talked about why and how to take those thoughts captive.

The recording includes the full teaching portion of the study. After the presentation ended, we paused the recording—but remained together on Zoom to linger in conversation, share personal insights, and pray for one another. Those moments of connection are a cherished part of our gatherings, even when they happen off-camera.

We’re sharing this study as a window into what Take Up & Read is like: thoughtful scripture reflection, spacious conversation, excellent Catholic coaching, and a community of women learning to live with greater attentiveness and hope.

Perhaps you’d like to join us next time?

Hagar is not who we expect to meet God first in Scripture.
She is not chosen, secure, or protected. She is used, dismissed, and sent away.
And yet she is the one who names God the God who sees.

Here are notes from our live Bible study: a slow, line-by-line reflection on Hagar’s story and what it reveals about God’s providence, protection, and deeply personal care—especially for those who have felt invisible, expendable, or outside the promise.

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