- Good Friday -
Satan’s cause is never more in danger than when a human being no longer desiring, but still intending to do God’s will, looks around upon a world from which every trace of God seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken, yet still obeys.
- C. S. Lewis,
Into the Wardrobe
(And that is what He did . . . Now for us to do the same.) |
IS 52:13—53:12; PS 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-17, 25; HEB 4:14-16;
5:7-9
JN 18:1—19:42 (Very long reading of the Lord's passion.)
Reflection on the
Scriptures |
At Gethsemane Jesus clearly expresses his reluctance to enter what he can anticipate coming. In different words, he asks his Father: Is not there some other way to go about this? Yet: Not what I want, but what you, Father, want. Jesus was willing to remain faithful to his Father’s understanding of his mission at any price. But it was neither he nor his Father who named the price, his adversaries did. And he
was willing to pay the price. It was Jesus’ commitment to pay that price in faithfulness to his mission that gives meaning to what followed.
It is important that we look at the passion from inside Jesus’ heart, not just from the externals of what others –the ones who named the price– inflicted on him. This is why, in my opinion, Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ misses the point,
as it focuses on the cruel punishment others inflicted on him. Granted, it would have been more difficult cinematographically to convey the Lord’s internal disposition. We need to accompany Jesus interiorly with the inner freedom to ask him: What was going through your heart at that point? Not that this will give us a full grasp of his passion and death, but it will help us to grow in solidarity with Jesus and, by “entering” his heart, we can discover a deeper meaning of the devotion to
the Heart of Jesus.
- by Luis Rodriguez, S.J. Revelations of Divine
Love - by Julian of Norwich
Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 36 “My sin shall
not hinder His Goodness working. . . . A deed shall be done—as we come to Heaven—and it may be known here in part;—though it be truly taken for the general Man, yet it excludeth not the special. For what our good Lord will do by His poor creatures, it is now unknown to me”
But this deed and that other aforesaid, they are not both one but two sundry. This deed shall be done
sooner (and that [time] shall be as we come to Heaven), and to whom our Lord giveth it, it may be known here in part. But that Great Deed aforesaid shall neither be known in Heaven nor earth till it is done.
And moreover He gave special understanding and teaching of working of miracles, as thus:—It is known that I have done miracles here afore, many and diverse, high
and marvelous, worshipful and great. And so as I have done, I do now continually, and shall do in coming of time
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