We can't make it to Sunday without first going through Friday. We cannot worship and yearn for God (*can you imagine feeling so strongly...for God?) if we don't remember that the cross wasn't always empty. We are fast approaching the day where we remember that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. On Good Friday we echo the words of John the Baptist, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 29.)
This afternoon I read something that Thomas Howard, an American Catholic writer, wrote in Bread & Wine: "The Cross is the Cross, not a magician's wand. And on that Cross we see the One whose self-offering transfigured all suffering...
I will bring my burden here, fall on my knees, and cry out for help, to that extent I may know that the Savior is receiving what I offer up and making it one with his own offering here...
(T)he darkness that shrouds Calvary is thick, and it is scarcely believable that the Son of God himself had it all sunshine in his Passion. We go through that valley of the shadow of death with him. But with him. With whom? Him - the Savior - the Agnus Dei <Lamb of God>- this figure on the Cross.
This figure assists us to gather our wayward thoughts and feelings. It focuses things. It may even come to our rescue if words fail: the corpus, bowed in agony but with arms stretched wide, says, not in sentences but its very shape, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you."
My burden of the moment may be sorrow: Warsaw, or a son debauched by his own choice. It may be physical suffering: paralysis, painful hospital tests, or arthritis. Or it may be sin - my own, alas, or the evil that regales me wherever I look.
For this Crucifix bids me also to the place where my exasperation or ire over others' sins must be forsworn in the name of the Mercy that God himself offers to the perpetrators of sin (I being the chief among them). What is it that rouses my ire in the passing scene? Someone cutting into the line at the ticket window? Bloody-mindedness on the part of some driver on the freeway? Cretinous inefficiency on the part of committees, boards, and panels of experts in local, state, or federal government? Monumental waste of taxpayers' money on all sides? Cruelty to children, animals, or the poor? Poisonous ingratitude and self-absorption on the part of some old person being cared for? The list goes on and on.
And my ire seethes. Swift vengeance is what we want here, I say. Oh, for the power to set things right forthwith and finally. If I were in control...
The words die on my tongue as the Crucifix looms. Ah, Domine Deus <Lord God>. Depart from me, Lord: I am only a sinful man...The judgment of my sins revealed itself at Calvary. Do I wish a separate, and stricter, judgment to come upon everyone else? Can I maintain such a wish as the figure on the Cross looks at me?" (Pages 202-205.)
Comments