Good Friday - Ave crux, spes unica - Hail to the Cross, our only hope
Were you there on Skull Hill when they crucified the Lord? Have you heard the hollow sound of a hammer striking nails with fierce fury? Have you heard a cry of pain from flesh torn apart by iron? Have you seen the Man in whose fading gaze there was superhuman pain and terrifying loneliness? Were you there?
Yes, you were. I was there too. We were all there. None of us was missing in the crowd standing around the cross, a huge, immeasurable crowd, extending to the ends of the earth and the ends of time. The whole of humanity, with all its history - all those who lived before us and those who will come after us - stood on that day at the foot of a lonely hill, awaiting the moment that was to become a turning point in time, a turn of history, the beginning of a new one.
The world, as usual, did not recognize the time of its true greatness. Roman civilization was drowning in pleasures, feasts, debauchery, chasing after the empty greatness of the proud gods of war and the false truths of its philosophers. In the northern forests, barbarians fought each other, creating new peoples who in a few hundred years later were to carry the heritage of Europe. In the so-called Roman world, no one even knew about other continents, where there were also people, people seeking some truth, tired of their own weakness. Who would care then that on the edge of the empire, in Palestine, forgotten by all, a lonely Man, Someone of little importance, was suffocating on the tree of shame.
We all stood at the foot of the cross. And it does not take great wisdom to understand what our role was in this drama, the stage of which was not only this lonely hill, but the whole world with its history. We are to blame for this death. No, this is not flat sentimentality or some suspicious mystique. It is a cruel reality, as concrete and blunt as the hard hands of Roman soldiers stretching the body of a convict on the wood of the cross, like the iron of a spear piercing a dead heart.
This drama returns with bloody reality every time, when a man – that is, you, me... – finds that God is wrong, that the world looks different from what God intended, that His laws are outdated and His demands impossible to fulfill. We return to Skull Hill to commit merciless murder whenever our truth becomes more important than the truth of the One who dared to claim to be the Truth. When our way diverges from the way of Him who said he was the Way. When there is no place in our lives for the One who called Himself Life.
However, this is not the whole truth about what happened on Calvary on that day.
The ultimate and deepest truth is that the expectation of God's miracle has been fulfilled. That on the cross death, evil, human weakness were lost. That the true Lamb was killed so that His Blood might save all men from destruction once and for all. This Blood flowed on Adam's skull, erasing the sign of his guilt, in which we all share. This Blood flowed to all the ends of the earth and time, so that, like from the waters of a flood, new life could arise from it, a pure and joyful life, a life without end.
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn 3:16). I stand at the foot of the hill, I look at my own work, the work of hatred, the work of death, and I know that I will live, that nothing can separate me from this Love that I myself have nailed to the tree, that even in death I will find the One who loved me, and death itself will no longer be the end, but the true Passover, A passage, an encounter with everyone I loved.
No one, no strong man in the world, can deprive me of the love of the King of Kings. Nothing, not even my own sin, will hide me from the Father's eyes, for the blood of the Lamb flowing from the cross cries out to mercy louder than my injustice cries out for vengeance. Even my weakness, even if I submit to it, will not triumph over me, because it is no longer I who fight, but the One who stretched out his arms to embrace everything that exists to the wound of the Heart fights in me. Though I fall, I will rise because I can lean on the wood of the cross.
Each of my pains has its place in the pain of this dying Heart. Every loneliness that no human being can share with me has found a faithful companion in the solitude of the Crucified. For from the dry trunk of the cross of death sprouts life. Through the heavy clouds hanging over Golgotha, the Light is already breaking through. The last word is Love that knows no end.
Jesus crucified. He cannot be separated from the cross and Christianity must not be treated as a system, program, doctrine, ideology or message considered in isolation from the person of Jesus crucified. Guardini wrote about it with great clarity in his Sinn der Kirche ("The Meaning of the Church"): "In Christian action, the figure of Jesus is found in place of the general norm." Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky wrote the same thing, only more passionately: "There is nothing more beautiful, nothing deeper, nothing more pleasant, nothing more reasonable, more courageous and more perfect than Christ. And not only is there no such thing, but there can be no such thing. I say this to myself with jealous love. Moreover, if anyone were to prove to me that Christ is beyond the truth, and if the truth were really outside of Christ, I would be tempted to remain with Christ rather than with such truth."
"God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us " could be summed up by Bonhoeffer what it meant and means to be a "disciple of this man", a follower of Jesus. Indeed, this meant and means to follow Jesus into the zone of weakness that never ceases to scandalize the world. It is necessary to decide, as the Apostle said, to "follow him outside the city" where he was martyred, to become an outcast like him, "bearing on us his malice", shame, disgrace.
Come, therefore, all you who labor and are heavy laden (cf. Mt 11:28). Come, you who are burdened with sins and weaknesses. Come, you whose hearts are wounded by despair; You who have been obscured by the fog of sorrow, who lose at the thought of death. Stand at the foot of Calvary. Fix your gaze on the cross of hope. Come. And live.
Ave crux, spes unica - Hail to the Cross, our only hope
Thoughts from Saint Faustina: Jesus said to Saint Faustina: All this is for the salvation of souls. Reflect, my daughter, about what you do for their salvation (Diary 1184).
Then I saw the Lord Jesus nailed to the cross. When He had hung on it for a while, I saw a multitude of souls crucified like Him. The second multitude were not nailed to their crosses, but they were holding them firmly in their hands. The third were neither nailed to their crosses nor holding them firmly in their hands, but were dragging their crosses behind them and were discontent. Jesus then said to me: Jesus: Do you see these souls? Those who are like Me in the pain and contempt they suffer will be like Me also in glory. And those who resemble Me less in pain and contempt will also bear less resemblance to Me in glory. (446).
fr. george
THE NOVENA TO THE DIVINE MERCY (Diary 1209-1229)
Jesus asked that the Feast of the Divine Mercy be preceded by Novena to the Divine Mercy which would begin on Good Friday. Jesus said to Saint Faustina: “I desire that during these nine days you bring souls to the fountain of My mercy, that they may draw therefrom strength and refreshment and whatever grace they need in the hardships of life, and especially at the hour of death. On each day you will bring to My Heart a different group of souls, and you will immerse them in this ocean of My mercy, and I will bring all these souls into the house of My Father. You will do this in this life and in the next. I will deny nothing to any soul whom you will bring to the fount of My mercy. On each day you will beg My Father, on the strength of My bitter Passion, for graces for these souls”. (Diary 1209)
First Day:
Today bring to Me ALL MANKIND, ESPECIALLY ALL SINNERS, and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy. In this way you will console Me in the bitter grief into which the loss of souls plunges Me.
Most Merciful Jesus, whose very nature it is to have compassion on us and to forgive us, do not look upon our sins but upon our trust which we place in Your infinite goodness. Receive us all into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart, and never let us escape from It. We beg this of You by Your love which unites You to the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon all mankind and especially upon poor sinners, all enfolded in the Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. For the sake of His sorrowful Passion show us Your mercy, that we may praise the omnipotence of Your mercy for ever and ever. Amen.
(Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet)