1-Apr-2015 Dear Friend, Why Good Friday? Why death? Why death forever? It is good and necessary for us to contemplate Jesus on the cross in his agony and death to realize how much God loved us in Jesus. Paradoxically, without the cross life is meaningless, and the world's suffering is meaningless. We need the cross to comprehend the problem of evil and its all-encompassing presence in the world today. We need Jesus on the cross to face our own crosses and to draw strength from Him. May we have an affirming Good Friday! -Fr. Jude Reflections for Good Friday "Being obedient unto death, He became the source of our salvation!" 3-Apr-2015 Isai. 52: 13--53: 12; Heb. 4: 14-16; 5: 7-9; John 18: 1-19: 42;
In today's first reading Isaiah paints a startling portrait of the suffering servant of Yahweh. This suffering servant has a dignity about himself and his spirit is intact and unbroken in the midst of all that he suffers. Physically he was abused and reduced to a subhuman condition, yet in the face of all that he suffered there is no bitterness, no anger, no resentment, no complaint. Isaiah is describing not only the suffering servant but in fact he gives us a pen portrait of Jesus himself as he goes to his passion and he also gives us a model of how the Christian is called to respond to suffering. Jesus would embrace the cross and transform it into an expression of love for all human beings. The cross, the object of death can become the object of life for us and for others, if it is embraced with faith, as coming from God's hands. He risked his life, all he got back was…One night a fisherman heard a loud splash. A man on a nearby yacht had been drinking and had fallen overboard. The fisherman leapt into the cold water and rescued the man and revived him with artificial respiration. Then he put the man to bed, and did everything he could to make the man comfortable. Finally, exhausted by the ordeal, the fisherman swam back to his own boat. The next morning the fisherman returned to the yacht to see how the man was doing. "It's none of your business," the man shouted defensively. The fisherman reminded the man that he had risked his life to save him. But instead of thanking him, the man cursed the fisherman and told him that he never wanted to see him around again. Commenting on the episode, the fisherman said: "I rowed away from the yacht with tears in my eyes. But the experience was worth it, because it gave me an understanding of how Jesus felt when he was rejected by those he saved."Mark Link in 'Journey' Today's Gospel presents a mortal conflict between good and evil, a battle between the Prince of Peace and the prince of this world. Good Friday is a day of paradox because an instrument of death becomes the source of life. It is also a day of mystery because the sinless one became as sin; a day revealing mankind at its worst and God at His best. Ultimately on this day love conquers death. Jesus on the cross transforms the curse of the cross into an instrument of blessing and eternal life. In the Gospel we hear an account of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John. There are several facets of the passion we could successfully reflect upon: The agony in the garden and the fearless confrontation of Jesus with those who came to arrest him. The triple denial of Peter in the presence of a maid servant. The trial before Caiphas in the Pretorium and then his confrontation with Pilate, and the lingering unanswered question: "What is the truth?" We could meditate on the Way of the Cross and his final moments on the cross. We could ask the questions: Why did the Father permit the Son to suffer? Why does God seem to abandon Jesus? Does God abandon his people, his beloved when they suffer? For that matter is the Father oblivious to the passion of his Son and to all his sons and daughters who even now suffer in the world today? While God does not reveal always his power, he always gives us the assurance of his comforting presence. We want God to be a powerful God, one who does away with all suffering. In Jesus' suffering and dying on the cross, we see as it were, an impotent God, a God who is made vulnerable precisely because he loves us, is ready to suffer with us and for us. Thy Will, Not MineRobert Grant's short story The Sign concerns a young man called Davidson. He wants to be a writer and has just mailed his first novel to a publishing house. Filled with fear about the publisher's decision, he goes outside and paces back and forth in an orchard. It was Holy Week. His thought went back and forth between Christ and himself, like a needle and thread: to Christ in the garden of Gethsemane kneeling in prayer, and to himself in the orchard; to Christ preparing for the supreme agony of hanging by nails, back to himself and his book with Dow Press. He stopped and said."Thy will, not mine." But then 'a bolt of awareness' struck him. He really didn't mean what he said. What he really meant was that he wanted God's will to be done if it coincided with his own will and worked out 'right', to the joint glory of the pair of them, God and Davidson. And for the moment he was nauseated. Then he sat down and cried.Mark Link in 'Journey' Closed DoorsIn the musical Sound of Music Sister Maria, when confronted with a momentous decision which was to change the entire course of her life, spoke the well-known line of assurance: "When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." Millions of Christians who have faced many 'closed doors' (heartaches, trials and disappointments) in their lives will raise up a hearty 'Amen' to her confident expression of faith. In fact, many of the world's great have achieved their most heroic accomplishments in the face of 'closed doors'. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained after having been afflicted with total blindness. Beethoven wrote some of his greatest music, including his Ninth Symphony, after he was almost completely deaf.Anthony Castle in 'More Quotes and Anecdotes' Ready to DieThe final sermon that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached before he was assassinated was the famous "I have been to the mountaintop" sermon. In it he declares, "I have seen the Promised Land, I am not afraid to die, I am ready to meet my Maker." He preached this sermon in the evening; he was killed the next day. Was it coincidence that he preached those words the day before he died? Or could he have had some mystic prevision of his death? It is said he preached that sermon very often, possibly a hundred times throughout the country. Andrew Young says: "The reason that he could preach that sermon so often was that he was always ready to die." He knew that death would come any moment because of the challenge that he was continually presenting to the conscience of America. He lived life fully and fearlessly. He was convinced of the rightness and goodness of what he was doing that he wasn't afraid to die. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had found something worth dying for. And so he lived passionately. He had something worth living for. In the crucifixion Jesus did not especially teach us how to die. He taught us how to live -fearlessly and passionately. The great message of the passion of Jesus is to live passionately.Anon. He didn't have to say muchToyohiko Kagawa was born in Japan to well-to-do parents. He was converted to Christianity and renounced his treasure and buried himself in the slums of his native land. He developed cataracts on both eyes; his lungs became tubercular; his frame developed a stoop. He suffered much. Towards the end of his distinguished life he came to one of the seminaries to deliver a lecture. When he was finished, one of the first year seminarians turned to another of the freshly-arrived juniors and remarked, "you know, he didn't say much, did he?" A woman standing nearby overheard and moved between them and set the matter right. She said, "A man on the cross doesn't have to say much."John Pichappilly in 'The Table of the Word' Dry MartyrdomHarvard psychiatrist and author Robert Coles tells of interviewing a little black girl during the early years of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. The little girl was subjected to a great deal of harassment. Hate words were scrawled on nearby walls and fences along her street, and threats were made to her family. On her way to school each day she was subjected to catcalls and harsh stares and obscene gestures. At school she was shunned by white students. All of this amounted to a lot of pressure for anyone, much less a small child. During a visit to her modest home, Coles asked the girl how she kept her composure. Good book Christian that she was, the little girl replied that she knew all the Bible stories of holding fast to God no matter what people did to you. She knew what they did to Jesus and how he held fast. And so she just put everything in the hands of Jesus, she said. He was her rock. Still, that didn't make the pressure any less. People of honour like this student, whistle-blowers, those who sacrifice jobs and livelihood to hold on to principles; all bear the heavy cross of dry martyrdom.William Bausch in 'The Word -In and Out of season' Nothing More to GiveSome years ago, divers located a four-hundred-year-old ship off the coast of Northern Ireland. Among the treasures found on the sunken ship was a man's wedding ring. When it was cleaned up, the divers noticed that it had an inscription on it. Etched on the wide band was a hand holding a heart. Under the etching was this inscription: "I have nothing more to give you." Off all the treasures on that ship, none moved the divers more than that ring and the beautiful inscription on it. The words on that ring, "I have nothing more to give you," could have been written on the cross of Jesus. For on the cross, Jesus gave us everything he had. He gave us his love. He gave us his life. He gave us all that one person could give to another. He had nothing more to give us.Anonymous Mark of the NailsA father wanted his son to realize the importance of making wise choices and their consequences. And so if his son made a bad decision, he'd give him a hammer and a nail to take out and pound it into a fence. Every day the son went through the whole day making good decisions, he'd let him go out and remove one of the nails. Until the boy was fifteen there were always two or three nails on the post -seems he'd be nailing new ones just as fast as he'd pull out others. The youth started to mature and make better decisions till one day all the nails were removed from the post. That was when his dad said, "I want you to notice something about the fence." Looking at the fence the boy realized that though the nails were removed there were some holes where the nails were driven in and removed. His dad said, Son, I want to tell you something about bad choices or decisions. Even though you may be totally forgiven from your bad choices or decisions, there are remaining effects, the consequences of those choices and decisions; just like the holes in the fencepost."Brian Cavanaugh in 'Sower's Seeds of Christian Family Values' May we by carrying our cross find new life for ourselves and others! Fr. Jude [email protected] PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections. These reflections are also available on my Web site www.NetForLife.net Thank you.
