This week hundreds of millions of people remember the death of Jesus of Nazareth.
THE cross and all it represents is all too present in our personal, social and international world. On this Friday we dare to look at it honestly. We dare to do this only because of the one who is dying upon it. Our hearts are focused on the central figure on the cross.
We wonder at the incredible freedom he possessed to be able to sustain what he did alone, to remain loving when his enemies were successfully achieving their ugly goal, and to remain trusting in God, when his friends had dispersed and he felt totally abandoned.
Watching the pierced heart of Jesus on Calvary, that is what we experience. There we see that God is love. Nothing we do can change that, not even our terrible sins. At last we are able to see who God really is, revealed in the prayerful, forgiving, life-giving, love-giving heart of Jesus.
Jesus’ first disciples realised that Jesus’ gift of himself from the cross had two implications for their lives. The first was their need to come together on the first day of every week (the day of the Resurrection) to support each other in their faith and to receive Jesus into their hearts in communion. We continue this practice in the regular Sunday Mass to which all are welcome.
The second was a commitment to love each other and to love the world the way Jesus loves. In 1900, in his book on the Sacred Heart, Father Jules Chevalier, the founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, wrote:
‘From the heart of Jesus pierced on Calvary, I see a new world coming forth: a great and life-giving world, inspired by love and mercy; a world which the Church must perpetuate on the whole earth’.
It is not enough just to contemplate Jesus crucified. We must experience him for ourselves as he lives and continues the mission of love given him by God.
And now, let us go in spirit to the hill of Calvary, and join with all our brothers and sisters throughout the Christian world. Let us pray that all hearts will be open to the grace that is continually being poured out over our suffering world from the heart of God.
