Good Friday

Today was a perfect good Friday.It was cloudy most of the day with rain and thunderstorms the other half. After we got out from communion service and veneration of the cross, the entire sky as far as the eye could reach had a mournful, greenish hue to it - so appropriate to Good Friday.

We, literally, just finished watching the Passion. That is such a good movie. It is very well done. My stomach always squirms whenever Judas shows up on the screen because of the torments he continuously has.

How can we possibly fathom all that Christ has done for us? How much suffering he really experienced? It's my understanding that although the Passion does a very good job in its portrayal of Christ's real Passion, it was unimaginable worse than that. That's not a pleasant thought at first glance. But if what the movie portrays is so awful and the real Passion even worse, how much more does God love us than we can even put onto film or a book. Or even comprehend on our own?

There are so many scenes in that movie that are heart-wrenching. One of the most amazing scenes that awed me was when Christ embraces His cross while praying to God the Father,

"Father, I am your servant and the son of your handmaid."

Archbishop Fulton Sheen is an amazing author and truly has a gift for explaining complex things in a simple and comprehensible way. In his book Victory Over Vice, he explains how each of the different types of suffering Jesus endured during His Passion is symbolic to different types of sin. He says,

"In reparation for all the impure desires and thoughts of men, our Lord was crowned with thorns; in reparations for all the sins of shame, he was stripped of His garments; in reparations for all the lusts of the flesh, He is almost dispossessed of His flesh, for according to Sacred Scripture, the very bones of His body could be numbered.

"Our Lord goes even further in reparation for the sins of lust by dispossessing Himself of the two most legitimate claims of the flesh. If there was ever a pure and legitimate claim in the realm of the flesh, it is the claim to the love of one's own mother. If there is any honest title to affection in the universe of the flesh, it is the bonds of love that attach one to a fellowman. But the flesh was so misused by men and so perverted that our divine Savior renounced even these legitimate bonds of the flesh in order to atone for the illegitimate.

"He became totally un-fleshed, in order to atone for the abuse of the flesh, by giving away His Mother and His best friend. So, to His own Mother He looks and bids farewell: 'Woman, behold thy son'; and to His best friend He looks and bids farewell again: 'Behold thy mother.'"

Isn't that mind boggling?? How does God love us - US, who have pained him by rejecting His love SO MANY TIMES - as much as he does? How are we to ever give Him the glory and praise he deserves? I guess we just have to give Him all we have........