Have you ever wondered why today is called Good Friday? This day that we remember Jesus’s passion and crucifixion. He was obedient to his father and suffered bitterly for love. As he walked the Via Dolorosa, his cross heavy, bearing down upon his shoulders, his beloved mother could see the brutal torments afflicted upon her son, his pain. This humble woman, the mother of God, united in mind, heart and soul with her son watched with unimagineable heartache and anguish as her baby walked, stumbled and struggled to his death on a cross. Her heart shattered and yet she still continued with great fortitude to pray with every breath of her soul along the horrifying journey to the cross. Her strength was her trust in God even amidst emotional and spiritual torment as she witnessed her son’s suffering.
God’s love is always a mystery. We in our mere mortal reasoning, favor logic and assess what is fair and right. We often allow the perspectives of our humanity to limit how we love and who we love. However, God loves extravagantly without counting the cost, without reason, he loves passionately and he loves each of us fiercely. We see the ultimate bounds of love clearly in Jesus’s sacrifice for each of one us. A selfless love, a love that asks for forgiveness to be granted to us from God our father, for we know not what we do. Jesus’s example, his love and compassion is a gift to each one of us. May we learn to love as he loves for we see how good God’s Love is. God’s Love pervades death and suffering. God transformed suffering by giving it value and making it redemptive. His love for us through the sacrifice of the cross offers us the goodness he intended for all of humanity before the Apple incident in the garden of Eden. God’s love offers us freedom from the penalty of our sins. What a generous and lavish God we have.
There is no better example on how to love one another than by looking at the cross. To love with everything we have been given, our talents, our gifts and our weakness, to love outside our comfort zone, to truly love is to face that which makes us uncomfortable. We must not be lazy or slothful in love, for love is far from sloth, love is the opposite of sloth. Love requires work, dedication and fortitude. Love requires sacrifice. Let’s be thankful for Good Friday and God’s love for us. May we be an example of his love to the world.
“Love is…the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.” –POPE JOHN PAUL II, FAMILLARIS CONSORTIO
