GOOD FRIDAY -2

GOOD FRIDAY -2  

One day a little girl looked into her mother’s face and said, “O Mummy, you’re so beautiful ! I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, except for your hands; what ugly hands you have.” The girl’s father heard that. Sensing how his wife felt, he said to the child. “Let me tell you a story, a true story.” One night a little baby was asleep in her cradle. Somehow the cradle caught fire. The maidservant ran out of the room in panic. But the baby’s mother rushed in. With her delicate hands she beat out the fire and saved the child.  Those beautiful hands sustained terrible burns. For several weeks she had to have them bandaged. The hands were finally healed. But they…” The little girl did not wait for the end of the story. She ran to her mother. Reaching for her scarred hands, she kissed them over and over again. “Mother, you have the most beautiful hands in the world.”

Anyone without faith who looks at the dreadful figure on the cross would say, “What an ugly sight he is ! What a repulsive face ! I can’t stand the sight of it.”  Such a person wouldn’t be far from what the prophet Isaiah said 700 years earlier: “We saw him without comeliness, without majesty, no sight to attract our eyes; a thing despised and rejected by men…One from whom people turn away their faces” (Is. 53, 2-3).

Happily our faith assures us of the deep meaning and reason for this terrible change in the appearance of Jesus; and our sentiments are those of the child in the story, kissing her mother’s hands. Filled with childlike gratitude, our hearts express their praise for our Saviour. In a few moments you and I will kneel to venerate the image of the crucified Christ. And you will realize that his ugly wounds are the most beautiful proofs of his love for you. You will remember that these feet that are fixed by a nail to the cross, these feet went in search of the lost sheep. These hands that are stretched out on the cross, are the very hands that rested gently on the heads of the little children he blessed, hands that cured the sick. And those parched and swollen lips spoke the word of forgiveness.

Listen to the words of St. Theodore the Studite: “Let us turn to the Cross anew, stopping, with joy to sing its praises. The Cross, worth more than all riches. The Cross, most certain refuge for Christians. The Cross, a light burden on the shoulders of the disciples of Christ. Consoler of great sweetness, for those suffering afflictions, a path-finder for the way to heaven, which no obstacle can block.”

PRAYER (Caryll Houselander):

Jesus, I praise you because I have known sickness and pain.

I praise you because I have known poverty, failure and contempt.

I praise you because I have been falsely accused and misjudged.

I praise you because I have suffered the parting of death.

I praise you because I have lived in sordid surroundings;

and I praise you for your goodness in bringing me to a happy home and giving the Faith to my friends.

Grant that I may always sip from the Chalice I am unworthy to drink from, and support me in every moment with the strong unfolding arm of your Love.

GOOD FRIDAY -1

GOOD FRIDAY

“Stay here, keep watch with me; watch and pray.”

Words spoken by a very human Jesus, bewildered and broken by circumstances to which he freely submitted himself. Consoling words that can bring balm and calm to us, if only we stay long enough to let the words sink in, if, like Mary, we choose to become men and women wrapt in silence. In all the austere liturgy of Holy Week there is a stark moment of profound silence, centred on the person of Jesus. And, let us face it, we are genuinely and rightly scared of entering too deeply into his silent suffering.

It’s not easy to watch a loved one suffer. Ask any mother, ask any father. Ask God the Father. One day God asked Abraham to sacrifice his beautiful son Isaac on Mt. Moriah. But as Abraham with anguish in his heart raised the knife over his Isaac, God held it. God spared Abraham’s son. But he did not spare his own Jesus. He let his beautiful Son be struck over and over again till he died. What else could he do? He saw his creatures misusing their freedom, hating instead of helping one another, hurting instead of healing. The world lay wounded and suffering. So what did God do? He did the noblest thing: he decided to become a co-sufferer, share our pain. He would receive wounds like we do. His Son would be known as the “wounded healer.”

Yet out of the wounds comes the wondrous faith fact that is clear and central to our whole living as men and women devoted to Jesus and to one another. If we stay long enough to notice that the facts are kind. We begin to understand the only fact that matters: God’s total personal love for each one. And we may even begin to realise that God asks only one thing of each of us: “Let me love you.” There can be no greater sign of God’s love than the divine-human Jesus stretched out on the Cross. The open arms of Jesus reach out to enwrap all who stay long enough to notice.

It’s rather awesome, isn’t it, when another human being says, “I love you”. So it’s no surprise that when we are faced by these three words lived out in the total self-giving of God’s Son, we find it hard to accept that love. It’s too good to be true; it’s frightening, and it costs. For a commitment already promised and given calls for a commitment in return. Love is two way; but it cannot be forced. Our Lover is patient. We only understand the Easter mystery by Eastering. We live in a Resurrection world. But such a world of wonders is only entered through the wounds. Not that we seek a morbid relish of the wounds; rather, we ask for a deepening understanding and compassion. After all, there’s no point in looking at a crucified Jesus unless we are willing to be with our crucified brothers and sisters. The cost is radical, a condition of complete simplicity, costing no less than everything. So we pray this Good Friday for staying power, for watching power, for praying power – all gifts there for the receiving if we really do want them.

Jesus is the Wounded Healer. He used to be harassed and tired, dust laden and very much involved. He never kept a clinical distance, but healed the sick by touching and holding, speaking and reassuring, and in a very personal way, for power went out of him. We are healed not by his health but by his wounds. The Crosses in our churches bear the wounded Christ. Yes, Jesus is our Wounded Healer. He lived through everything in love, with not a trace of bitterness or hatred for those who wounded him. Each of us is being called to become the same in mind and heart as he. As St. Paul reminds us: “Let this mind be in you as was in Jesus.”

CROSS AND COSMOS

            Just as a loud explosion can precipitate an avalanche, so when the crucified Christ “cried with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit” (Mathew 27,50), certain cataclysmic phenomena occurred like so many echoes of his final cry. As the body of the Crucified writhed “in extremis”, the earth trembled in earthquake horror at what took place on Calvary: the Master of the universe was being broken by his own creatures’ malice. Darkness enveloped the land, the Temple curtain was torn in two, and the earth convulsed and regurgitated the dead who walked the earth again in a zombie daze. Trembling nature got a slice of the action that decided the fate of the world forever.

          Wherever the story of Golgotha has been told, the role of nature as partner in the drama could not be left out, as if the mystery of divine suffering was conveyed through the compassion of nature. And the pagan Roman centurion was drawn into it by witnessing to the Crucified when, with numinous awe, he perceived in a naïve-profound way that something more had happened than the death of a holy and innocent man.

The sun veiled its face in shock horror at what it witnessed, and by that token lost its own erstwhile divinity: it conceded all power to the One who, in ultimate agony, surrendered to that which is greater than a million suns. Thus, a suffering and struggling soul, which cannot be broken by all the powers of the cosmos, is the true image of divinity. There is no more a “Sun-god”, only a “brother Sun.”

          “The curtain of the Temple was ripped in two.” The Temple tore its gown, as mourners do, to show its nakedness and shame for what its servants did by rejecting an innocent worshipper from its precincts. Plucked asunder, the now ragged weave lost its separating quality. He who was expelled for blaspheming the Temple had cleft the curtain and exposed the Holy of Holies for every man and women, for all time. From then on, every place became a god-unforsaken place, in the name of the One who hung upon the Cross in the name of the holy place.

Like the temple, the earth was judged at Golgotha, judged to be unfit of itself to be the safe ground for building our cities and religious systems. Trembling and gurgling, the earth pointed to another foundation on which the earth itself rests, and that was the self-surrendering love on which all earthly powers and values concentrate their hostility but which they cannot conquer. Since the hour when Jesus uttered his loud cry and breathed his last and the rocks were split, the earth ceased to be the foundation on which we build on her. Only in so far as it has a deeper root in which the very Cross is rooted can it last.

Finally, the body of God was too sublime to be contained within earth’s bowels. The boulders split, as the land quaked, in deference to the Lord’s passage from darkness to light. No longer is the universe subjected to the law of death out of birth, but to the law of life out of death by the One who passed from death to life, from earth to heaven. From the moment that the Divine Son surrendered his spirit to his Father, the universe has received another meaning. History has been re-directed and draws us human into its sweep unto God who is all in all.

GOOD FRIDAY: THE WOMAN ON THE HILL

                                               The Woman on the Hill     

                                                                                                          

                Our lives are to sparkle and dance and lure others into the arms of God. Mary’s faith life is a dance to imitate, but the steps are ours to learn, and no dance is the same. What is more important is to grow up, walk on our own two feet, and run after the Spirit’s gifts. A mother’s love stretches us and makes us imitate the love we have been given so graciously. Mother Mary saw that “the Child grew in stature and strength.”

Mary is the Virgin daughter of Israel who bears a Son, who says “Yes” to the God who calls her to carry God’s own Son and birth him in our world. She the lowly handmaid who will be called “Blessed” by succeeding generations, she has the Faith. Her will is to do “the command of the eternal God (Rom 16, 26), even if it means walking the hard road from Nazareth of Galilee to the place of the Skull outside Jerusalem. She saw her Son heading for disaster, but by faith and steadfast loyalty she walked by his side. From the “maid of Nazareth” she will become the “woman on the hill.” And we, men and women of faith, will walk with her from Bethlehem to Calvary. We shall stand and contemplate this magnificent woman on the hill, the woman of faith who replied to the angel Gabriel: “Be it done unto me according to your word.” Rest your eyes upon this brave Mother standing by her crucified Son.

She remembers saying to herself, when he was twelve and already about his Father’s business, “He’s not my little boy anymore.”

Rivulets of blood beading the earth beneath the Cross.

Deep down inside she knew that her little boy was born to die.

Why should she be there?

But this was hers. This cross upon the hill. He had not sheltered her from pain nor ever asked that she not be free to learn anguish. She had learned that.

He had not been fretful or concerned to throw around her soft protection, guarding her against a share in him. He’d spoken truth to her. He’d not been reticent or sparing.

He’d not held her unadmitted to the full acceptance, never.

She had heard what Simeon could say, and at the moment when she’d found the Child that had been lost, he had not consoled her with a gentle paraphrase of futures, eased away from what the days should be. And he’d not softened any loneliness when Nazareth was ended.

She was free to sorrow and not withheld. She could be eager, insistent, insatiate, for this was hers to take, her own. And by a long inclusion granted her, she’d known she’d need not ever turn from grief

Of all the spreading earth this was the one place she might stand with him.

She could be near. He would not deny her now; he’d not forbid her come here.

This was hers, her life, her dignity, her choice, the essence of her heart’s significance, the sum and substance of her existence, the end of her being.

She bore the right to be here, standing under the claim of being the “Woman.”

She could penetrate to this, this small and inner-concentrated anguish.

She could stand here. This was hers.

And he would only look, expecting her.

“Woman, here is your son.”

“Son, your mother.”

Love never looked like this.                      

The woman of the hill has become the woman of our hearts. As the Beloved disciple John took Mary into his own, we too take her home and give her pride of place, even though we humbly admit that our home is not always in order.

                                

TREASURE

Treasure

Posted: 20 Jul 2011 03:56 AM PDT

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

You may not have a lot of money, but you have incredible wealth. You may not have an abundance of things, but you possess more than you could ever ask or think. God has placed within you the greatest treasure anyone can ever possess—it is the life of Jesus Christ. You have, living within you, the beauty of His holiness, the kindness of His grace, the freedom of His truth, the compassion of His mercy, the greatness of His power, and the riches of His love. He has freely lavished upon you a treasure house of blessings that you can freely give away to others.

SIN-BEARING GOD

THE SIN-BEARING GOD

2 Corinthians 5:21

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (NIVUK)

Read the verses around this Bible passage from the Internet Bible: in English, and many other languages

This little verse is a gem, shining with all the brightness of heaven and brimming over with love. It is a verse to meditate upon and commit to memory because of the stark truths it presents about the Father and the Son in relation to our evil natures and God's righteousness. It starts and ends with God, describing an awesome sequence of events which were planned by God. They result in God sharing His nature with people, who were once rebellious enemies, but who have been reconciled by the blood of Christ (Colossians 1:22). It starts by affirming that God the Son, who became the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, had no sin. He was always in intimate relationship with God the Father and God the Spirit from eternity past. And yet the divine plan was for Jesus to 'become sin' because of God's love for us (John 3:16). That does not mean that Jesus became personally sinful or that in any way He rebelled against His Father's will. It means that He became the sin-bearer. God placed upon Him the sin - all the sin of all the people of all the world for all time (John 1:29) - like the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:10). The cross was no accident: it was God's intended way of atoning for our sin (Acts 2:23). The ultimate purpose is that we should wear the righteousness of Christ (Romans 3:21-22). Just as our sin was imputed (attributed) to Christ, so His righteousness is now imputed to us. His death, bearing our sin, was because He loves us (1 John 4:10). Likewise, His righteousness replaces our unrighteousness. The two are linked, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness" (2 Peter 2:24). As unrighteousness is the uniform of the world's rebellion against God, so His righteousness is the uniform of heaven. We must take off unrighteousness and delight in wearing His righteous nature (Ephesians 4:22-24). That is why Christ died for us – not just to relieve us of a guilty verdict in the court of heaven, but for us to be like Him and work with Him. Like the easily-distracted Corinthian church, we can also lose focus. We can forget why we have been saved, and how much it cost the sinless Son of God to bear our sin - He was cut off from Father God for our sake (Matthew 27:46). And yet we can become so preoccupied with our own concerns or hurts that we want to grab the comfort of the cross without accepting its challenge (Matthew 16:24) – to reject our sinful nature and to accept His work in our lives until we gladly wear His righteousness. This is essential, practical discipleship rooted in our gratitude for His love to us.

Loving God. Thank You for loading all the sin of the world, including my sin, onto Jesus as He went to the cross for me. I repent of forgetting what it cost You, and of frustrating Your purpose of giving me Your righteous nature to wear. Please forgive me and give me a fresh insight into Your love for me, deepening my gratitude to You and stirring me to want to put off unrighteousness and choose to wear Your righteousness. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

MARIAN DOCTRINE - POPE BENEDICT

Pope Benedict on the Church's Marian Doctrine

Friday October 15, 2010

On Monday, October 11, 2010, at the opening session of the Seventh General Congregation of the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a rare unscripted homily that may well be seen by future generations as one of the defining moments of his pontificate. In just under 2,200 words, the Holy Father demonstrated the depth of his theological understanding, explaining in simple terms the Church's Marian doctrine, Her understanding of the historical centrality of the Incarnation, the role of the Church throughout history, the false gods of the past and the present who stand in the way of the Church as She attempts to fulfill her mission, and the source of the Church's strength that will ultimately lead to Her triumph.

The homily is so rich that I intend to examine it in parts over the next few days. We'll begin, as Pope Benedict did, with his exposition of the Church's Marian doctrine.

October 11 was, in the traditional calendar, the feast of the Divine Maternity of Mary, and Pope Benedict noted that, when Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council on this day in 1962, he "wanted to entrust the entire council to the motherly hands, to the motherly heart of the Virgin Mary." The feast was introduced by Pope Pius XI to commemorate the declaration, at the Council of Ephesus (431), that the term Theotokos—Mother of God—was properly applied to the Virgin Mary. In this declaration, "the Council of Ephesus had summarized the entire doctrine on Christ, on Mary, the entire doctrine of the redemption."

God became man, through the humble and loving action of the Virgin Mary in accepting God's will. In allowing God to become incarnate in her, the Mother of God was "drawn by the Lord into himself, and so all of us with her."

But Mary's role in the divine plan of salvation did not end with the birth of Christ. As Pope Benedict notes, at the end of the Second Vatican Council, "Pope Paul VI acknowledged the Virgin Mary with the title 'Mater Ecclesiae'" (Mother of the Church):

Because Christ was not born as an individual among others. He was born to create a body for himself: he was born - as John says in chapter 12 of his Gospel - to draw all things to him and in him. He was born - as the letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians say - to recapitulate all the world, he was born as the first-born of many brothers, he was born to reunite the cosmos in himself, such that he is the head of a great body. Where Christ is born, there begins the movement of recapitulation, the moment of the calling, of the construction of his body, of the holy Church. The Mother of "Theós," the Mother of God, is Mother of the Church, because she is Mother of the one who came to reunite all in his risen body.

We can see how the two titles, Theotokos and Mater Ecclesiae, are really one and the same, the Holy Father says, by examining the "parallelism between the first chapter of [Saint Luke's] Gospel and the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, which repeat the same mystery on two levels." In Luke 1, Mary accepts the will of God at the Annunciation, and Christ is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1, Mary is in the Upper Room with the disciples at Pentecost, "imploring the cloud of the Holy Spirit": And so from the believing Church, with Mary at the center, is born the Church, the body of Christ. This twofold birth is the one birth of the Christus totus, of the Christ who embraces the world and us all.