Day2
GOOD FRIDAY
Embedded Files
Sometimes it is the memory of ourselves being forgiven that will make possible our forgiving others
Welcome back to Day 2 of our self-paced Days of Prayer!
Yesterday we focused our attention on the temptation in the desert.
We saw how, though, he refused to do it in the desert, our Lord did, in fact, turn stone into bread
in a way the devil neither expected nor desired!
The way our Lord reached out to Judas, his betrayer, the way he refused to fight back during his arrest,
and the way he consistently tried to treat his enemies with love – our Lord taught us to “drop the stone”
and “feed the mouths that bite him.”
To begin our second day, we will contemplate a scene
that’s not found in the Gospels. When we pray using Scripture,
we are invited to use our imagination to enter more deeply into its characters
and stories. This is what the film director Mel Gibson does in The Passion of the Christ.
In the film there is one powerfully moving and memorable scene – an event not narrated in the Gospel, but no less faithful to it –that Gibson imagines happening right after the Scourging at the Pillar.
The woman who has been previously caught in adultery joins Mary, Jesus’ mother,
in saving the blood that Jesus has spilled. As she does so, she remembers
her very first encounter with Jesus, an experience of shame but also of forgiveness.
She recalls how the Lord manages to convince that mob to drop the rocks and stones in their hands.
You may wish to prayerfully watch this video clip of that scene:
We have all been recipients of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Sometimes it is the memory of ourselves being forgiven that will make possible
our forgiving others.
Perhaps this is the grace we need to drop the stone.
As we begin this second day, pray for this grace.
Jesus showed that he was no slave to the human need for social approval and affirmation. How about you?
Before we talk about the Good Friday temptation, let’s talk about a basic Lenten temptation.
The trouble with Lent is that we’ve heard it all before – we already know how it all pans out.
So the danger is we end up with a “Been there, done that!” attitude.
But what’s important is not so much “going through Lent” (again for the nth time!)
but “letting Lent go through us” – allowing its mysteries to penetrate us
and our being ever more deeply, and giving them permission to transform us.
Let this be our goal today: to open our hearts to let the familiar, but ever rich mysteries of Lent
go through us in order to transform us.
The Good Friday temptation:
Today we enter into the mysteries of Good Friday through our Lord’s second desert temptation.
Without hesitation, our Lord rejected the devil’s suggestion
that he fling himself down from the temple tower to call his angels to rescue him.
It’s actually not such a bad idea when you think about it: an impromptu synchronized flying of angels
would enable him to defy gravity and win him every believer he desired!
No more sermons on the mount or the plain! Perhaps no more exorcisms or healing miracles
or multiplication of loaves and fish! Why, he would be declared messiah and king
right there and then!
But our Lord turned it down. By not going through this shortcut
and putting up such a public circus, Jesus showed that he was no slave
to the human need for social approval and affirmation.
How about you? How attached are you to social approval and affirmation?
How much do they affect – and rule – your decisions and actions?
scripture passage
scripture passage
Imagine standing before the cross and seeing the Lord as described in these hauntingly vivid verses
Read the following passage prayerfully.
From the Book of Isaiah, it foretells what Jesus undergoes on the cross –
the rejection and dishonor he receives.
As you do so, imagine standing before the cross and seeing the Lord as described
in these hauntingly vivid verses.
If you wish, you may play this instrumental music
to help you read the passage as contemplatively as possible.
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
REFLECTION:
Imagine a slow, painful, and humiliating death, and all throughout the process, the antidote that can end all your suffering lies just within your reach The Lord refused the desert temptation to throw himself down from the temple top to call on the angels.
But it is precisely what he did on the hill in Calvary: He threw himself down into the hands of his enemies. Only, he still refused to summon his angels even though the entire host of them hovered over him ready to do his bidding any time.
Our Lord took the plunge resulting in his death.
What would you do? Isn’t it a no-brainer? Wouldn’t you simply reach for the switch
and flick it –and just like that ease your pain and save yourself?
Not for the Lord. He chose to stay on the cross, rejected by his people, mocked by the priests, scribes, and soldiers.
We all know his reason for doing that,
for going all the way. The one and only reason is love. He could have changed his mind any time.
He could have taken the devil’s advice and dialed the heavenly 911
for immediate angelic rescue.
But he chose to stay.
It’s quite bewildering this insistence on “going all the way.”
When you think about it, a different version of his second temptation in the desert is this:
the temptation of a miraculous rescue. The second temptation in the desert
is based on our need for support and affirmation.
By letting go of angels and foregoing their rescue, our Lord showed us that he would follow God’s will
even if it meant not getting any support and affirmation, and worse, embracing dishonor and humiliation.
The Romans designed crucifixion not only as a physically painful death,
but also as a psychologically intolerable one. Our Lord experienced the most humiliating death
on the cross: He was stripped completely naked, and subjected to non-stop mockery from the crowd:
“He was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53)
On the cross
the Lord teaches us how to respond when others hurt us and mock us.
As he did on Holy Thursday, our Lord subverts yet another so-called wise saying:
“Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.” It cautions us against enemies who pretend to be meek and gentle only to pounce on us when we’re not looking:
But our Lord does the opposite. He, who can read hearts, sees the flicker of good in the hearts
of even the most wicked among us. He recognizes that many people victimize others
only because they themselves have been victimized.
They’ve turned evil only because they themselves have been terrified and traumatized,
hurt and hardened. Instead of bewaring of “wolves in sheep’s clothing,”
our Lord asks us to look beyond the wolves in others and to love the sheep hiding in wolves’ clothing.
A Day of Tears
We must allow Good Friday to be a day of tears. Why and what for?
Pope Francis explains it best:
The suffering of our Lord Jesus
and his death on the cross,
as well as the lessons he teaches us,
are examples of such realities.
They can only be through tear-drenched eyes.
If we put on a scholar’s hat
or a scientist’s cap,
using an objective eye to assess the crucifixion,
we would fail to make any sense of them!
Like many realities – and mysteries – in this world of ours,
the death of the Lord and its message for us
cannot be understood
if we rely on a so-called objective – or cold and distant – perspective.
We need to gaze upon him
with a heart soaked in tears.
closing prayer-song
closing prayer-song
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