by Reverend Deacon Lawrence A. St. Onge 

        In the midst of all the horror, and cruelty and betrayal of that first Good Friday, what should really come through to us most vividly is God’s absolute commitment to each and every one of us. It is love that is the whole meaning of the events of Good Friday. God’s love for us is such that he will not give up on us. The Lord refuses to allow us to be excluded from his love; he refuses to allow us to be burdened by our sin; he refuses to allow us to be governed by the power of death.

        It is on the cross that the Lord Jesus takes on to himself the weight of humanity’s suffering and pain. It is on the cross that God accepts the awful consequences of humanity’s sin and hatred. It is here that we see what evil is capable of, and what evil leads to.

        In the first reading we heard the prophet Isaiah say: “It was our sufferings that he endured…He was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins.” In a mysterious way, it is on the cross that the Son of God takes to himself the whole history of humanity’s violence, cruelty, selfishness and sin. When Jesus was faced with brutality, he did not fight back; when he was surrounded by hatred, he did not retaliate; and when he was oppressed by injustice, Jesus offered forgiveness. It’s as if all the caustic forces of evil were gathered together and God said: It all stops here. This is where the chain of hatred, the ugliness of sin, and the power of death, ends. It is through Jesus’ wounds, that we are healed, sanctified and redeemed.

        Now the question is what is our response to Good Friday? Our immediate reaction might be to mourn the horrors of Christ’s agony and death on the cross; but if we do that we miss the meaning of Good Friday, for today is a victory, not a defeat, because today is the day of our salvation – the day when humanity’s greatest enemies were overcome. Jesus’ cross should not be viewed as a terrible instrument of torture and death but symbolically as a noble tree of life, our triumph and our hope.

        So today is a day for us to rejoice, for today we bask in the love of God, which holds nothing back, which never abandons us or lets us down. Vatican II teaches that the Good News of God’s love in Christ Jesus reaches to the innermost depths of our being. He reveals to us that God is love and we are precious in his eyes. We are the objects of God’s love. And so, with that in mind, today is the time for us to offer our praise and adoration to the God who loves us with such passion.

        Let us pray that through God’s grace we too might reflect some of that love in our own living and life. Let us pray for the courage, the selflessness, the audacity to love. Jesus told Pilate: “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” The same is true for us, for as scripture says: We are created in the image and likeness of God. We are born for love, created to bear witness to the power of God’s love, which not only creates and sustains us, but also heals our wounds and re-creates us. So let us, today, recommit ourselves to the power of love and to the truth of love, as the only way to life.