WAY OF THE CROSS 2008
through Phoenix Park Dublin
Elements for reflections of
Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland
Good Friday, 21ST March 2008
INTRODUCTION
We set out on the Way of the Cross in this public place. We raise the Cross high for all to see. We raise the Cross high within our city, within our diocesan Church, and in our society and our world, as we commemorate the day in which God revealed himself in an extraordinary way, as the One who, in Jesus Christ, would give himself for our salvation and lead us also beyond death into new life.
Our salvation! The Cross is the way to salvation, to true freedom. Jesus who had become one like us except for sin brings us and all humanity with him in this passage through death unto life.
On Good Friday we remember the suffering of Jesus We remember that, bringing our humanity with him through death into life, Jesus brought new life and hope to each of us in our own weakness, in our sinfulness, in the misery that is in our hearts of each of us and which we barely acknowledge.
The message of Jesus life-giving death tells us that no aspect of human life is excepted from this saving power of Jesus. There is no weakness, no darkness of our hearts that cannot be healed.
God loves us. God knows each of us personally and wishes to heal us personally so that we can live our lives to the full. Let us open the secrets of our hearts to your saving and healing power. Lord through your Cross and Resurrection, heal us in our weakness.
FIRST STATION
On the night before his death, Jesus institutes the Eucharist, which re-enacts the mystery of his saving death and resurrection until he comes again. The Eucharist is to be the new covenant for the remission of sins.
It is interesting to note in the Gospel reading we have just heard, that this central moment in Jesus’ salvific mission is immediately anticipated by the betrayal of Judas and followed rapidly by the denial by Peter. Jesus great gesture of love and fidelity is flanked by the infidelity of his followers.
The disciples are gathered for their Paschal Meal, a most solemn moment both of religious memory and of fellowship. The betrayal of Judas takes place at a high point of the commemoration of the events of salvation, at a moment when the unity of the family of believers was symbolised. Judas not only betrays Jesus, but he betrays him in the context of the great celebration of the faithfulness of God to his people.
Peter and the disciples, having shared the unique Supper with him, profess their faith and say that they will never disown Jesus, and yet within hours Peter will have denied him, the other disciples will have fled.
Jesus is the faithful one. Jesus is the sign of God’s fidelity to us; his fidelity remains even in the face of our denial, our betrayal, our indifference. Jesus remains faithful. He continues on his way of the Cross, the way that the Father has destined for him. Very few accompany him freely on this way. Very few accompany him until the end. Mary his mother, who was chosen because she belonged to the faithful remnant of Israel, remains faithful all throughout her life, pondering his words, observing his mission, now sharing in his passion. Mary is the model of the faithful disciple.
Jesus’ fidelity contrasts with the fragility and ambiguity of the behaviour of his close disciples, and indeed also of us.
It is easy for us to show anger and disdain at the weakness or dishonesty of Judas and Peter and the other followers who fled. Yet curiously the fact that those close to Jesus betrayed him and denied him should not perhaps too easily provoke anger in us, but rather encourage us. Jesus knows human weakness. He knows our weakness better than we do. He knows our fragility and the ambiguities that are in our hearts. He knows what we try to hide. We tend to hide our sinfulness, to enter into denial about our weakness, to seek comfort in false hopes, to place our trust in our own strengths. But Jesus’ remains faithful in his love for us.
Being a Christian is about allowing our imperfect love, limited by egoism, self-centeredness and sin, to be cleansed by the love of God made visible in Jesus. Being a follower is Jesus Christ means witnessing in our lives to the fact that “God is love”. It is extraordinary how we have so often lost sight of this central fact of our belief.
SECOND STATION
Jesus loves us so much; he is so determined to free us from the power of sin and death, that he faces this challenge even unto his own death, even unto the ignominious death on the cross.
Jesus’ love for us is so great that he transforms the meaning of the cross. The cross, symbol of death and evil, the symbol of ignominy and disgrace, becomes the sign of our salvation. By loving us right until the end, Jesus showed his total obedience to the Father and the greatness of his love for us. Jesus does not avoid the suffering of the cross. He suffers it until the bitter end out of obedience.
Contemporary culture finds the concept of obedience difficult. Being fulfilled and happy is considered more about being oneself and doing one’s own thing than obeying any other. Contemporary culture finds the concept of obedience difficult because it does not understand the obedience of discipleship, the obedience of love. Love’s borders are different to the borders of my egoism. Love takes us into the unknown, it takes us beyond ourselves, it leads us from looking in at ourselves into looking out from ourselves and giving ourselves.
Being a disciple means not just journeying with Jesus, it means going with him into the unknown, journeying with Jesus wherever he takes us.
True obedience to the Lord requires that I no longer remain closed and withdrawn within myself, considering my own fulfillment the main reason for my life. It requires a fundamental decision no longer to consider just usefulness and gain, popularity or celebrity or success as the ultimate goals of my life.
What true discipleship requires is not, however, rejection of self-esteem, rejection of my own talents and identity, but rejection of those false hopes and the false truths which do not lead us to truth and leave our hearts empty. Discipleship means rejecting false identity and finding my self through giving myself freely.
Jesus reveals to us the true face of God. Our God is a God who is with us, a God who is for us. He is a God who frees from the falseness of evil and sin by living until the end the realities of truth and love. By loving us right until the end, Jesus has shown us too that there is nothing in us and nothing in humanity and in human experience which has not been touched by the saving force of God operated in Jesus and cannot be healed by the mercy of God, if we allow God’s love to enter fully into our hearts.
Being a disciple means not just journeying with Jesus, it means going with him into the unknown, journeying with Jesus wherever he takes us.
True obedience to the Lord requires that I no longer remain closed and withdrawn within myself, considering my own fulfillment the main reason for my life. It requires a fundamental decision no longer to consider just usefulness and gain, popularity or celebrity or success as the ultimate goals of my life.
What true discipleship requires is not, however, rejection of self-esteem, rejection of my own talents and identity, but rejection of those false hopes and the false truths which do not lead us to truth and leave our hearts empty. Discipleship means rejecting false identity and finding my self through giving myself freely.
Jesus reveals to us the true face of God. Our God is a God who is with us, a God who is for us. He is a God who frees from the falseness of evil and sin by living until the end the realities of truth and love. By loving us right until the end, Jesus has shown us too that there is nothing in us and nothing in humanity and in human experience which has not been touched by the saving force of God operated in Jesus and cannot be healed by the mercy of God, if we allow God’s love to enter fully into our hearts.
THIRD STATION
Jesus is the revelation of the God of strength. Yet now he finds himself judged by weak humans, with their false witnesses and their lack of courage. Jesus who is truly the Son of God is condemned as a blasphemer. Religious terminology is used to judge and falsely condemn the one who is the way, the truth and the life, the essence of true religion.
How could those who claimed to be accusing him of blasphemy, those who felt that they knew God’s law and design authentically, spit at Jesus in the face, hit him with their fists, mock and insult him? How can those who today profess to be believers in a loving God humiliate people in their dignity and self esteem, how can they resort to behaviour which is below human dignity, in order to advance an agenda of personal satisfaction, for personal, economic or political exploitation or for religious superiority, and yet attempt to call their behaviour religious?
How can those who profess themselves to followers of the Lord of life still today pass the other way when it comes to healing and binding and carrying those who are the victims of a society of false idols, the idols of drugs and of violence, the idols of wealth and superficiality? Christ’s Church, the community of believers, must purify itself to become a true witness to Christ’s care, mercy and love.
We have a long way to go to understand what is meant by mercy. There is an innate arrogance in each one of us. We need to judge in accordance with God’s law, the law of love, rather than using religious terminology falsely to pass judgement on the weakness of others and condemning them.
Lord, all human beings – even sinners – are your sons and daughters, loved by you. You did not leave us with a list of those we should love or those who should be excluded from our love, much less excluded from your generous love. Help us to mirror your love in our world, to have a special, preferential love for those who are excluded by poverty or marginalization, by the hatred or intolerance of others, or indeed even through their own fault and weakness.
The Cross is a powerful symbol that all can be saved and that all can come to new life. Let us not put our limits on your love. We have no right to think that we can measure out the immeasurable love of Jesus according to our self-centred standards and measures.
FOURTH STATION
Jesus is put through the external processes of justice. He is brought before the governor; he is traded off in a legal compromise with a brigand. He watches as the guardians of legality all meet to plot his unjust death. Jesus is handed from one authority to the other. Even for his mockery the soldiers find a purple robe, a sign of authority, the cynical offering of a court official or one of the Pilate attendants.
Lord, rather than witness to the truth we too all too often take refuge in what appear as the correct processes, in what is politically correct, in what is the fashion of the day, in what is the official line, or in the way in which things are done. We find a way to convince ourselves that we have done our bit and that there is really no purpose in going the extra mile. Following Jesus means going against the stream.
Jesus way is a way of suffering. We pray for all those who suffer today: those who suffer anguish or physical pain or sickness, those who are suffering bereavement, those who suffer the cold of the elements without the warmth of human support, those who have been traumatised by the disregard of others, those who suffer for their convictions of their faith.
Suffering is hard to accept. So hard that at times we would prefer to sanitize suffering off the radar screens of our lives. A society which banishes suffering to its margins quenches at the same time its sense of compassion, the sense of being one with the person who suffers. To use words of Pope Benedict speaking of suffering: when we are with others in their solitude, then their situation ceases to be solitude.
An the Pope adds: “The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie”.
So many people today find life empty, they end up frustrated or burnt out. We can see many examples today where well-intentioned frenetic activism in every direction only ends up loosing all direction. It is Jesus then who leads me to find what I am searching for in my life and who opens meaning and hope for me in my everyday existence. It is when I abandon myself to Jesus that I fully find myself. It is when I know Jesus that I most fully understand humanity.
FIFTH STATION
Jesus dies on the Cross. Our way of the Cross brings us to that most profound moment in history in which Jesus, the Son of God, dies on the Cross. Jesus, the author of life, seems defeated and overcome. The bystanders call on him to show his power, to save himself. Jesus cries: “My God my god why have you deserted me”. Even God seems absent. The God of life seems to be handed over definitively into the hands of human agents of death.
This marvellous story of the goodness of God revealed in the life of Jesus ends up on a criminal’s cross. It would seem that this is indeed the end of hope
And yet we cry that the Cross is our only hope. It is the greatest sign of hope and of salvation for all. After all the expressions of hatred, the empty spectacle of human depravity and dishonesty at his trial, it is the love of Jesus that triumphs. Against all human predictions, outside all purely human criteria, Jesus’ free and total self-giving brings renewed life and love.
The encounter with Jesus is always, of course, an encounter with his gratuitous love. Being a member of the Church means trying to mirror that love in my life, even though my efforts will always be imperfect and limited by egoism, self-centeredness and sin, distorted today by many of the elements of contemporary culture and society, just as in the past lives were distorted by the culture of the time.
How do we purify our lives? How do we purify the Church? The answers to these questions are the same. It is not that Christians are good and an “institutional Church” is somehow less so. No, if we as individual believers and as a believing community do not live the essential Christ-centred nature of the Church, then the Church will be emptied of its meaning. It will quickly be reduced to just a mixed bag of providing welfare, of being nice to people, of doing good, of being a depositary of values from which we can pick and choose at will. If that is all the Church is then it becomes just one benevolent organization along side others, with all the good points and the imperfections of any other organization. In such a situation, it is clear that if your experience with the Church has been negative, and then even the word “benevolent” drops out, and Church becomes a distant, self seeking organization, useful on one occasion, irrelevant on others.
Lord, renew us and renew your Church in the spirit of your Cross. Lord help us humbly to recognize our weaknesses and confront them with the mercy of God which frees us from what entraps us and restores us to be truly ourselves. Help us to overcome all that leads us into the slavery of sin. Accompany us weak human beings whom you have called to be your disciples today. You know our weaknesses. Lead us into an encounter with you through which, through passing along the way of your Cross, we too may rise to new health of mind and body, to new freedom, to new life, to your life of love.
Lord Jesus, help us to be like you. Help us to witness to and defend and protect human dignity, even when it is spat on and wounded. Help us to be healers and reconcilers, people who try to restore wounded humanity. Help us to preach you message in a manner which respects human persons in their freedom, in their dignity, but also in the weakness and brokenness.
Lord Jesus, help us to be like you. Help us to witness to and defend and protect human dignity, even when it is spat on and wounded. Help us to be healers and reconcilers, people who try to restore wounded humanity. Help us to preach you message in a manner which respects human persons in their freedom, in their dignity, but also in the weakness and brokenness.
