February 22, 2004

 

The Journey

Lent again shapes and forms the liturgy of the Church. Again, we walk with Christ as He approaches His terrible “Hour.” Again, we are asked to recognize the concise significance of His Passion for us and for the world, and to acknowledge the shocking fact of its continuing pressure.

Gibson’s disturbing movie displays the brutal nature of the Passion of the Lord – an experience physically brutal and spiritually overwhelming. It expresses, in the Person of Jesus, the horrible nature of sin. “He who knew no sin was made sin for us.” So said St. Paul, and so, inconceivably, it is.

We must not think that, for Jesus, suffering was easier to bear than it would be for us. It simply is not so. He could not benefit from ignorance of the future, as we can. His mind saw it all with dreadful clarity, and His sinless innocence made it physically more painful, for His boy was not “coarsened by sin,” to use a phrase of St. Thomas. Finally, who can imagine the great load of suffering He endured because of His knowledge of the vast numbers who would not benefit from this final expression of His Love?

As Christ walked His Way of the Cross what did He see when His eyes focused on 2004? He was much that gave him great pain: a serious attempt to reduce the purpose of life to purposeless pleasure; a serious attack upon Him and His teachings; the heart-shattering vision of some of His own priest guilty of crimes, which made the betrayal by Judas seem noble in comparison. All this He saw, and much more. Our sins were the load of the cross. They drove the nails. They were the devil’s cacophonous chorus around the saving cross.

At the foot of the cross stood Mary, His mother, her sword-pierced heart faithful still. He spoke to her. He spoke to John. He spoke to the thief who had miraculous vision. He prayed for His executioners. His plea was based on their ignorance. (Are we ignorant?) Finally, His great voice was lifted with a power and freedom which surely then should have been impossible: “Father, into Thy hands I give My Spirit.” Thus He gave for us the gift of His life. Remember: Earlier that week He had said “No one takes My Life from Me. It is I who will willingly lay it down, and I will take it up again.”

Dear ones, let us stand with the noble ones at the foot of the Cross. Young men and women, join John. Mothers join the great mother Mary. Women, join Magdalene and the other women. Men, remember the powerful thief who had miraculous vision. Somewhere inside he had the vision to see the great One beyond the suffering. So can you. So can we all.

Let us make this lent a time of conversion. Let us return to the beauty of truth and to the truth of beauty. Let us throw into the trash can all that is ugly and false. Our own nobility demands this. Our Church and our country need this. Christ needs this, for we are His hands, His feet and His voice.

 

- Fr. Cornelius O'Brien