My Good Friday reflections

I recorded a short YouTube video reflecting on the mystery of Good Friday.

Here is a written reflection as well.  (The video and text are not the same).

Good Friday (April 10, 2020)

In October of last year, my mother died.  She was 91 and had been in declining health for a bit, so the family saw it coming.  And as a priest of sixteen years, I have of course ministered to the dying on countless occasions.  But still, there is nothing that really prepares you for your mother’s death.   Toward the end, Mom was in severe pain, so she could no longer speak, but only moan from the weight of her agony.  Of course, every fiber of a son’s being is thinking, this is wrong!  As she lay dying at home in a hospital  bed we had specially set up for her, I couldn’t help but flash back to the countless times when I was a child sick with a fever or some other illness, and she was there to strengthen and comfort me at my bedside.  I had a mysterious disease as a boy where I was bedridden for weeks in a hospital.  And she would be there by my side very day.  But now my brothers and sisters and I in turn could only hold her hand and entrust her to the Lord.  I had the privilege of administering the last sacraments (last rites) to her, but still, there is a profound feeling that death was not meant to be.  Yet my family had to stare death square in the face that sad late October day.

We can multiply that terrible feeling that this is just not right an order of magnitude when we contemplate this awful, terrible – yet profoundly beautiful – mystery of Good Friday.  When we have no choice but to confront the reality that we have to face head-on not just the death of a dear loved one, but the death of God Himself.  The mystery that Jesus, the God-man, truly died on the Cross for our sins.

We know deep, deep down that this is not right.  With every fiber of our being, we know that the Son of God – pure holiness, pure goodness, literally Love in the flesh – should not have to die for our sins.

And yet, the reality is inescapable.  He lay dying on the Cross, in terrible agony.  For three long hours on that infamous tree.  That is why the world should come to a complete standstill between noon and three every Good Friday, in an awe-filled wonder that Jesus could love us so much.

As a pastor, I will deeply miss the celebration of the Sacred Triduum with the people, because the liturgies are so beautiful, poignant, powerful – the high point of the Church’s year.  I especially loved the simple but profound adoration of the holy Cross on Good Friday where first the priest, then the people one by one would come up to the Holy Cross and venerate it, either in silence or singing the extraordinarily powerful hymns that have come down to us through the centuries as part of our rich Catholic patrimony, especially  O Sacred Head Surrounded, and the Stabat Mater.  But what was most moving for me was the clear faith and love expressed by the faithful, as they approached the Cross – sometimes alone, sometimes a whole family – usually kneeling, sometimes gently weeping, sometimes tentatively reaching out for the Cross as if they dare not approach.  In the lines of their faces, gazing at the face of Christ crucified, I could often see the pain – not just from the bitter trials of life, such as the recent loss of a loved one.  But the pain that came from knowing that this Jesus – Our Lord, Our Savior, Our Divine Friend– has taken upon Himself in that agonizing event the full weight of every one of our sins.  The Lord we should have loved so much because we owe Him everything was the one Whom we nailed to the tree.

And yet the Lord does not reproach us, but extends His holy arms to us in love, in that eternal gesture of forgiveness.

Gazing upon Christ crucified is terribly painful in one sense – because that Crucifix becomes for us a mirror.  A mirror or our indifference, our infidelity, of the many ways we have abused His love.  But at the very same time, it is terribly beautiful – because it becomes a window as well.  A window into the depth of the soul of Jesus Himself, into the infinite abyss of His mercy and forgiveness.  A mercy so deep, so profound that it can not be expressed in prose at all.  Only in music and poetry and then only imperfectly.  But most often, only in silence.  In the silence of gazing upon a Crucifix, time and time and time again.  A devout and pious practice we should engage in not only on Good Friday, but every day, as every Catholic should make sure to have a crucifix displayed in his home in a place where it very visible.  And pray before it every day.