10-Apr-2017 Dear Friend, Why call it “Good Friday”? Good for whom? 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. The cross without Jesus is meaningless, and the world’s suffering is un-understandable without Jesus. 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 cross and to draw strength from Him. May we have a Good Friday, affirming God’s boundless unconditional love for us! –Fr. Jude. Reflection: Good Friday “Although He was Son, He suffered, obedient unto death!” 14-Apr-2017Isaiah 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. In the face of all that he suffered there is no bitterness, no anger, no resentment, no complaint. Describing the suffering servant, Isaiah gives us a model of how a Christian is called to respond to suffering. Jesus embraced the cross and transformed it into an expression of love for all. The cross, the object of death, can become the object of life for ourselves and for others, if it is embraced with faith and with love, as coming from God’s hands. The KissI stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted in palsy; clownish. A tiny twig of the facial muscles of her mouth had been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervour the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumour from her cheek, I had cut the little nerve. Her husband was in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. “Yes,” I say, “it will be. It is because the nerve was cut.” She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says, “it is kind of cute.” All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate her, to show her that their kiss still works.Richard Selzer in ‘Stories for the Heart’ Today’s Gospel is a gospel of paradox: it 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. Jesus on the cross transforms the curse of the cross into an instrument of blessing and eternal life. In the Gospel there are several facets of the passion we could 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 and confrontation with Pilate. “Are you the king of the Jews?”, 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 itself leading to his painful cry, echoed by all who suffer: “My God my God why have you forsaken me.” We could reflect on the first words of Jesus on the cross pleading for forgiveness for his people: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus becomes the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. He breaks the chain of violent response to injustice by offering forgiveness instead of vengeance. By accepting his passion and enduring his cross he earns redemption for all mankind. Forgiveness and reconciliation are offered to all who seek them. Looking for forgivenessThere is a Spanish tale of a father and son who had become estranged after years of bitter strife. The son finally ran away. Finding that his son was missing, the father became heartbroken and set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a desperate effort, the father placed an ad in the city newspaper. The ad read: Dear Paco, Meet me in front of the bell tower in the plaza at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father. That Saturday eight hundred Pacos showed up at the plaza looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers.Anonymous The Tent of RefugeIn the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, two Bedouin youth got into a fight, tumbling to the ground in their fury. One boy pulled out a knife, plunging it fatally into the other’s chest. In fear he fled across the desert, fled from the slain boy’s vengeance-seeking relatives, fled to find a Bedouin’s sanctuary, a ‘tent of refuge’, designed by law for those who kill unintentionally or in the heat of anger. At last he reached what might be termed – the black-tented encampment of a nomad tribe. The boy flung himself at the feet of the leader, an aged sheik, and begged him: “I have killed in the heat of anger; I implore your protection. I seek the refuge of your tent.” “If God wills,” the old man responded, “I grant it to you, as long as you remain with us.” A few days later the avenging relatives tracked the fugitive to the tent. They described the assailant and asked. “Have you seen this man? For we ask for him.” “He is here,” said the sheik, “but you will not have him.” “But he has killed, and we the blood relatives of the slain will stone him according to the law.” The sheik raised his voice, “You will not as long as he remains with us.” “We demand him,” the relatives declared. “No! The boy has my protection,” said the sheik. “I have given my word, my promise of refuge.” “But you don’t understand,” the relatives implored. “He killed your grandson!” The old man was silent. No one dared to speak. Then in visible anguish, with tears searing his face, the old man stood up and spoke ever so slowly, “My only grandson –is he dead?” “Yes, your only grandson is dead.” “Then….” said the sheik, “then this boy will be my grandson. He is forgiven, and he will live with us as my own. Go now; it is finished.”Walter J. Burghardt in ‘Sower’s Seeds of Christian Family Values’ The Sign of the CrossLike the electric chair, the cross is scandalous, a symbol of shame. Jesus died on the cross and we are asked to embrace it. So look at it for what it is. Don’t sanitize it. The cross is not a pendant. It is not a decoration. It is not pretty. It is a challenge. Realize how bizarre you and I are to centre our lives around a cross. Yet it is precisely this terrible, shameful symbol which is offered us by Jesus. “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” It is a risky thing to sign yourself in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.William Bausch in ‘The Word in and out of Season’ May we accept the Lord’s merciful forgiveness freely offered to us! Fr. Jude Botelho botelhoj...@gmail.com 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.
