Around the Cross of Christ

In my parish, we end Good Friday in the evening, with a quiet, simple time of prayer and reflection on the mystery of the Cross. In the stillness and silence of an empty church a small group quietly gathers before the crucifix above the sanctuary (in the photo below), just as a small group gathered, or remained on Calvary, long after the crowds had dispersed. 

I was asked to write this year's reflection, which I am sharing here. My intention is to read each paragraph with a long, silent pause between each one; and then, as we do every year, we can remain, praying in silence, for as long as each one wants or needs to. So, this blog is longer than usual, but I hope you will find something in it which speaks to you, and resonates within you, this Good Friday. 

‘It is accomplished’.
Jesus has died: his eyes are closed, his face strangely peaceful; his agony is now over. But for those who love him and who remain grieving by his cross, the pain and anguish continue.

Whose suffering do we bring with us this evening, to the foot of Jesus’ Cross?

When we look at the cross we see an instrument of torture and degradation… We see the worst that humans can conceive of and do to each other. But more than that, when we look at the cross we also see the best of what God can do for us. Because if we want to know what God is like we only need to look at Jesus crucified, and rest in a certainty beyond our understanding: that God is love, and nothing but love. And here before us we can see the height, the depth and the breadth of God's love; the awesome, wonderful enormity of that Love Incarnate who allowed himself to be nailed to the Cross. On its own the cross is horrific; with and because of Christ, it is gloriously, triumphantly redemptive. It is the worst of us, transformed by Love into the best of God. 

What do we bring to Jesus, for him to transform by his love?

When he died, Jesus must have thought he had given everything he had; his mother and friends, too, must have felt they had already endured as much as anyone could. But more gratuitous cruelty was to come. Soldiers came, tasked with hastening the deaths of the three men being crucified. Jesus was already dead, so there was nothing for them to do. This soldier could have moved on… But no… Maybe he was pumped up on power and adrenaline; maybe he was angry and frustrated at having one less person on whom he could inflict pain… Maybe he especially wanted to hurt Jesus… And so ‘he pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water’.

In this moment, Jesus, God’s love made human, is utterly vulnerable, a defenceless spent force, while sin and evil are triumphant. And yet... through that act of gratuitous cruelty Jesus' Heart is opened, never to close, releasing a torrent of superabundant, redemptive love, a wellspring that will never dry up. God's mercy and faithfulness pour forth in a Heart wounded by sin - wounded but not overcome. Hatred is somehow lost in the mighty flow of love it has unwittingly unleashed. Love, seemingly powerless, has, in its very powerlessness, conquered sin. 

What are the many piercings we can bring, and place in Jesus’ tender, wide-open Heart?

‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’
Here, at the peak of Jesus' suffering, came the pinnacle of love: forgiveness, which is the gift to the Nth degree that breaks the cycle of evil. *

And what became of the soldier? We don’t know, but there is a pious tradition that he repented, and became a believer in Jesus Christ. I like to imagine that some of that blood and water he had unintentionally released splashed onto him… that Jesus’ loving prayer for forgiveness for his killers embraced him too, and so he was baptised by living water! Like the Cross, the soldier too has been transformed by Love; like all of us, he too has been redeemed. And our belief in his repentance is a reminder to us all that nothing and nobody is so awful and so irredeemable as to be beyond God's mercy, and powerful, transforming and redemptive love.

Can we allow this mystery to transform us too, from the inside out?

And can all this give us a hope to hold on to, when everything seems bleak, and hatred and war appear to be reigning supreme?

*From a homily by Pope Francis, Easter 2019