GOOD FRIDAY

GOOD FRIDAY.2012

Two brothers lived together in the same apartment. The older brother was an honest, hard-working and God-fearing man and the younger a dishonest, gun-totting, substance-abusing rogue. Many a night the younger man would come back into the apartment late, drunk and with a lot of cash and the elder brother would spend hours pleading with him to mend his ways and live a decent life. But the young man would have none of it. One night the junior brother runs into the house with a smoking gun and blood-stained clothes. “I killed a man,” he announced. In a few minutes the house was surrounded by police and the two brothers knew there was no escape. “I did not mean to kill him,” stammered the young brother, “I don’t want to die.” By now the police were knocking at the door. The older brother had an idea. He exchanged his clothes with the blood-stained clothes of his killer brother. The police arrested him, tried him and condemned him to death for murder. He was killed and his junior brother lived. He died for his brother.

What do we feel when we hear this: we should feel grateful and admiring. Jesus taught us the price of love: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). Our Christian faith is not just the reverential relationship to a distant and even abstract God we know nothing about, but the adhesion to a Person, true man like us and, at the same time, true God. The Invisible one became flesh of our flesh and assumed to be a man until death, a death on the Cross. But, it was a death accepted as a ransom for us all, redeeming death, death that brings us life.
As we look up to the cross today and contemplate Jesus dying to make the full payment for our sins, let us thank him, and let us promise him that our whole lives will be one unbroken song of thanksgiving to him who gave his life to make full payment for the immeasurable debt we owe to God. Every time we come before the cross, or make the sign of the cross it should remind us of this great love of God.

Just as he loved us enough to come into this fallen world and take a share in our crosses, so we should bring his love to those around us by helping them carry their crosses. There are people all around us who are out there trying to bear their heavy crosses all alone. They don't know that Christ has died for them, or they have forgotten it, or they are too frightened and ashamed to accept it. Jesus is yearning to strengthen them. He just needs hands and feet and tongues to help him. We each know at least one person who is struggling to carry their cross.
What better way to thank Christ for his gift to us than to promise him to lend that person a hand: to pray for them, to accompany them, to relieve their burden a little bit, to show them through our own confidence in God that there is hope, that Christ can give meaning to their suffering.

Today when we gaze on the Cross, the instrument of victory over sin, when we kiss the Cross, we should thank God for this great gift, the mystery of Christ's cross that has rebuilt the bridge of trust. We should let it penetrate our hearts. When we come up to kiss the crucifix, we should do so with that in mind.
Now when the wood of the Cross is unveiled before us on which has hung the Savior of the world. Let’s Respond to the Church's call: "Come, let us adore."
Let’s adore Christ, and we praise him, because by his Holy Cross he has saved the world.