22 April 2011: Good Friday

Let us carefully meditate on these last words of our Lord, what the priest will use by our deathbed.

“My Father ...” What sweetness dwells in that word! How well fitted it is to soften the bitterness of death, and to give confidence in the last struggle! “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Lk 23:46) [‘Commend’ signifies, according to the Greek text, ‘deposit’, or ‘place’.]

I place my spirit into your hands, into the hands which created it, which gave it to me, for a time united to a mortal body, to glorify you on earth; now death separates it from its lifelong companion, till the moment of the resurrection. Until then, I commend it into your fatherly hands.

“And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.” (Jn 19:30) Thus dies our loving Saviour, at the precise moment He willed to die, without suffering the agony he had previously endured in the Garden of Gethsemane. He dies abandoned and calumniated, but his death is followed by an immediate testimony to both his innocence and his divinity.

The centurion at the foot of the cross exclaims, “Indeed this was a just man; indeed this man was the Son of God!” (Mk 15:39)

Jesus is dead! But he has overcome death, and opened to us the gates of everlasting life. He is dead; but from his heart, pierced by the lance, flows the life-giving Sacraments of his spouse, the Church, which is to bring forth till the end of time countless children worldwide.

His dead body remains nailed to the cross; but his Soul enjoys the Beatific Vision, and has received the adoration of the inhabitants of limbo.

Contemplate the lifeless Body of our loving Redeemer. Eyes that shed so many tears of tenderness and compassion over sinners; mouth which opened only to glorify God or comfort man; pierced hands, ever ready to aid and bless; wounded feet, moving only by obedience, never weary of seeking his lost sheep.

Behold the mournful scene at the foot of the cross: the three Mary’s and Apostle John remain; the crowd and soldiers gone. God sends two men to help who, before their conversion were weak, fearful; but now grace has made bold and resolute. They mount ladders, unfasten and place Jesus in his Blessed Mother’s arms. They, too aid this most sorrowful Mother to bind his sacred Body in linen cloths, with spices, and entomb in the sepulchre.

Consider how God regarded his well-beloved Son. Formerly humiliated and abandoned he is now honored and cared for after death. So will God treat us if we humbly and lovingly accept his will in adversity.

Ref: Cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, pp182-4

Christ is Crucified: Our Redemption is accomplished

Crucifixion was the most cruel and insulting form of execution in ancient times. A Roman citizen could not be crucified. Death followed after a prolonged agony. At times, the executioners hastened the end of the crucifixion by breaking the legs of the crucified.

From apostolic times till today, many still cannot accept a God made man who died on a piece of timber to save us. The drama of the cross continues to be a “scandal for the Jews and folly to the gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23). There has always been and there remains today, a temptation to detract from the value of the Cross.

The intimate union of each Christian with his Lord requires a full knowledge of his life, this chapter of the Cross, too. Here the Redemption is accomplished; the key to suffering in the world. Here we learn a little about the malice of sin and the love of God for each man. We can never be indifferent in front of a crucifix.

“It was not necessary for him to undergo such torment. But he wanted to suffer all this for you and for me. ... are we not going to respond? Very likely there will be times when, alone in front of a crucifix, you find tears coming to your eyes. Don’t try to hold them back. But try to ensure those tears give rise to a resolution.” (St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Way of the Cross”, Eleventh Station, 1)

Beside Jesus is his Mother with the other holy women. There too is John, the youngest of the Apostles. “When Jesus saw his Mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his Mother, ‘Woman, here is your son!’ Then to the disciple, ‘Here is your Mother!’ From that hour the disciple took her into his home.” (Jn 19:26-7)

Ref: Cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 2:282-3, 285

The Cross, Beginning of the Resurrection

“The One who sent me is with me. He has not deserted me since I always do what pleases Him.” (Jn 8:29) As if to say, first of all, even in this supreme abandonment, I shall not be alone! I will do at that time ‘what pleases Him’, that which is the will of the Father!

The Father will not leave me in the hands of death, because the Cross is the beginning of the resurrection. Thus, ‘the crucifixion’ will become ‘the lifting up’ by definition. ‘Then you shall know who I am.’ Then, too, you shall know that ‘I only tell the world what I have heard from him’.

The ‘unlimited solitude’ which Christ had to experience on the cross in his ‘lifting up’ is revealed to us. That solitude was to begin during the prayer in the garden of ‘Gethsemani’.

This must have been a real spiritual death agony and was to be completed in the crucifixion when Christ cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46)

The crucifixion really becomes Christ’s elevation. In the Cross is the beginning of the resurrection. Therefore, the Cross becomes the definitive measure of all things, those which stand between God and man. Christ measures them exactly with this yardstick. ...

The dimension of the world ‘meets with’ the dimension of God exactly ‘in the Cross’: in the Cross and in the resurrection. In his talk with Pilate, Christ was to say, “My kingdom does not belong to this world” (Jn 18:36).

Ref: Cf Pope John Paul II, “Prayers and Devotions”, 1994, p156

Our Lady -- “Mary spent three days and three nights looking for the son who was lost. May you and I also be able to say that our willingness to find Jesus knows no rest.” (St Josemaria Escrivá, “Furrow”, 794)

• Our Lady of Betharam, in the diocese of Lescar, in the province of Bearn. This image was found in the year 1503 by some shepherds who, seeing an extraordinary light on the spot where the high altar of the chapel now stands, came up and found an image of Our Lady, for which they at once erected a chapel. — Triple Couronne. n. 32. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; www.bethlehemobserver.com)
• Our Lady of Betharam, France (1503). (www/divinewill.org/feastsofourlady.html); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html)
• Our Lady of Betharam (Diocese of Lescar: Bearn, France). (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
• “Notre Dame de Betharam”. Diocese of Lescar, Bearn, France. 1503. (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)
• The Compassion of Mary. The Sorrows of Our Blessed Mother. Moveable feast -- Friday after Passion Sunday. (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
• The Sorrows of Our Blessed Mother. Moveable feast -- Friday after Passion Sunday. (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)