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April 14, 2017I would invite you to reflect for a moment on how you were reacting to the Proclamation of the Passion. What were you thinking or feeling? (Pause) My hunch is that there were many different responses, like “this is really long”, “didn’t I just hear this last Sunday”? Or maybe you lost contact with it because of a certain preoccupation that you have. Maybe you had a vague feeling of guilt. May you tried hard to place yourself in the various scenes and sense something of what was happening. No matter. Our reading is finished. So maybe we need to ask what is the appropriate reaction that all of us should have to the Passion Gospel? I would suggest that there are two basic responses that should dominate our whole celebration this afternoon, the first gratitude and secondly compassion.
Let us remember first of all that Jesus did not suffer nor die today. He is risen and glorified, Lord of Heaven and earth, seated at the right hand of the Father. We do not have to feel sorrow for him. We need, rather, to celebrate what he has done. That means to remember and give thanks. The Passion is proclaimed to help us remember. We remember not only that he died and how he died, but it is important we remember and are deeply aware that he died for each one of us personally. He died for all my particular sins, sins that I Bob Kreckel committed as a son, a youth, and as a priest, and he died for the actual sins of your life. You know what they were. Jesus death on the cross was not just an execution of an innocent man, who died two thousand years ago, it is not only a sign of man’s inhumanity to man, but it is more importantly a sign of the unlimited extent of God’s love for us: “God so loved the world that He sent his only Son, that all who believe in him may have eternal life.” Remember, too, the words of St. Paul “God has shown just how much He loves us. It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us! We were God’s enemies, but he made us friends through the death of his Son. This is the measure of how much God loves us sinner. Therefore, the first response to our faith in this must be gratitude for God’s forgiveness of our personal sins.
I have said that the Risen Jesus is now beyond all suffering, that is, he no longer suffers in his physical, glorified body. But he is not beyond suffering in those whose humanity he shares. He has revealed that it is especially in the poor, the weak, the persecuted, those who hunger and thirst and undergo any kind of suffering that He is present. There is where he looks for compassion today. Here is where his suffering is real; here is where the Passion of Jesus continues today. Here is where we can minister to him today. If we are indifferent towards people who suffer now, we are indifferent towards him, and our celebration of His passion and death is not authentic without that compassion for our brothersand sister human beings.
In a few moments we will come forward to venerate the Cross by touching it or genuflecting before it or kissing it. Let us do it we hearts filled with gratitude that he has forgiven us our particular sins and made it possible for by our faith in his death to have eternal life. Let it also be a sign of our commitment to do what we can as individuals and as members of his body, the Church, to do what we can to eliminate the causes of suffering in our world and to show compassion to those are suffering in our midst. Lord, we bless you and we praise you because by your cross you have redeemed the world.
