The Catholic Church is celebrating Holy Week, the series of events which led Our Lord Jesus Christ to have his Last Supper with his closest friends, one of whom ended up betraying him, with the result that the Son of God was crucified. Three days later, He rose from the dead.

The story of how Jesus was apprehended, prosecuted and killed is always captivating. Every time one reads or hears that part of the Gospel being read there is always some new meaning that one can learn from. A simple note that, a year ago, would have gone unnoticed strikes a chord when one hears it again this year.

One particular aspect that often goes unnoticed because there are other sections of Christ’s Passion that stand out more is the emergence of Jesus’ humanity when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He went there with three of his Apostles, knowing that He was about to be captured following the betrayal of another of the Twelve. He wanted the comfort of his friends, and yet, after praying on his own for some time, he found them asleep.

Who has never been in such a situation? Who has, when in trouble, never been abandoned by the people who mean most? Who has never found him/herself with his/her back to the wall and, when reaching out for help, does not find any?

Jesus’ humanity also emerges when He asked whether He could be spared of what He would have gone through hours later, placing however His destiny in the hands of the Father.

Again, everyone of us goes through bad moments in life, when everything seems dark and gloomy, when no matter how much one tries to swim against the current no improvement is made.

But, as the saying goes, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. Time heals, and what appears to be a difficult moment today will, some time later, be looked at as a moment which helped us grow. That difficult experience will, in all probability, turn out to be a blessing in disguise as we would have learned something from it. It would have helped us mature.

Jesus was betrayed by a friend with a kiss. Friends and kisses are not normally associated with betrayal, but Judas chose to give Christ away with a kiss on the cheek.

We have all been through a betrayal in our lives, and a betrayal comes from someone close to us. People we do not know, people who we consider as adversaries or, worse, as enemies, cannot betray us in the real sense of the word because their actions would be somewhat expected. The real betrayal, and this is what hurts most, comes from the people around us, those who we think seek the best for us.

On this night, Jesus was also denied, yet again by one of the people who was closest to Him. Peter denied knowing Christ three times. Jesus was again left on His own when he needed support, yet another situation that we face regularly in our every day life.

There is a lot to learn from Christ’s life, particularly from His suffering in the hours leading to His crucifixion. There is a lot to learn from how the people around Christ behaved in those ugly hours. There is a lot to learn from what Christ said and did from the moment He sat down to have his last supper with the Apostles to the moment He died on the Cross.

Let us all try to find some time, even a few minutes, to reflect on what happened 2,000 years ago. Those events still mean a lot today.