TGIGF: The Cross as God’s Gift of Self-giving Love

HOMILY: GOOD FRIDAY

John 18:1-19:42

2 April 2021 

Fr. Ricky C. Montanez, AA

What would break you? What would bring you to desperation? For some, severe physical torture is enough to make them lose their minds. For others emotional trauma like breaking up with a lover or the death of a loved one is enough to sink them into clinical depression. For others, mental stress due to overwhelming problems causes their body to break down and succumb to disease. How about you, how much suffering can you take? 

There is so much suffering in our world today. People are carrying all kinds of crosses these days — the crosses of job loss, sickness, hunger, uncertainty, death… On Twitter, I saw a tweet asking prayers for a boy whose older and younger siblings died within days of each other because they could not get medical attention. The surviving family is under quarantine and cannot attend to the remains of their loved ones. There was also a story of a young man who drove his ailing father to 11 hospitals from  Novaliches to Pampanga. They found a vacancy in Valenzuela but only received medical attention after a 12-hour wait. It would be no surprise if people asked, “Where is God in all this?” 

He is here suffering with us. This answer may be difficult to accept or comprehend when we too are undergoing fierce trials but it does not diminish this fundamental truth. Throughout His entire life and ministry, Jesus has shown an immense capacity for compassion towards all of humanity.  In its simplest definition, the word “compassion” means to ‘suffer with’. In His humanity, He knew what it was to feel hunger, thirst, and fatigue. Being the object of lies and hatred, He suffered mockery, betrayal, and loneliness.  He suffered more explicitly during the last hours of His life and yet love sustained Him through the ordeal. He was filled with so much love that there was more than enough for Him to give to those He encountered on the Via Dolorosa. Even with the weight of the cross on His shoulders, Jesus offers consolation to the women weeping at seeing His afflictions: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.” (Luke 23:28) Abandoned by friends, betrayed by one and denied by the other, mocked by soldiers, taunted and jeered at by the bystanders, Jesus still manages to extend forgiveness and care for others even in the darkest hours of His great agony on the cross. To those mocking and taunting Him, Jesus prays: “Forgive them Father they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). To the repentant thief, Jesus promises eternal life: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43). To His beloved mother, feeling her pain, Jesus entrusts her to the care of a good friend: “Woman, behold, your son. Behold, your mother.” (John 19:26-27). Only when all things have been accomplished does He hand over His spirit to the Father. As the Suffering Servant of the Lord,  “[Jesus] was pierced for our offences, crushed for our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)

The skeptics would say only God could have endured such suffering and mere mortals are incapable of looking beyond their ordeal. I beg to differ. Accompany me as I take you on the painful journey of this woman I came to know about. She came home on the evening of March 17 to find her child frantically assisting her husband who had vomited  fresh blood. They called the emergency hotline and in the course of the standard interview, was told by the operator “Ma’am, considered COVID case na yan. Find a hospital that will accept him and then we will send the ambulance.” She begged them to come and give first aid while her friend phoned hospitals looking for a vacancy. The medics came at midnight to give first aid but had to leave after. The whole night, the small family held hands and prayed through tears for a miracle. By morning a hospital agreed to take him so the ambulance returned at noon to transport him. When they got to the hospital, doctors were waiting at the ER entrance, not to accept them but to reject them on the premise that their COVID facility was already full. They brought him to another hospital that agreed to take him. He was given a broken wheelchair to sit on so the woman cradled her husband’s head and prayed.  Through the 5-hour wait, patients begun to pity them as doctors and nurses labeled as heroes of the pandemic, ignored her pleas for help. When they finally attended to him she was told to sign a waiver indemnifying the hospital for the outcome of the treatment. Desperate, she signed it against her better judgment. She embraced her husband tightly, asked him to be strong and to trust in the Lord. She told him she loved him and that she and their child would be waiting for him. As he disappeared from view she offered up all their suffering and entrusted him to God. She went home to attend to her child and packed some things. It had been 24 hours. She had not slept or eaten but she rushed back to the hospital. There was no word from the medical staff so she waited patiently, praying fervently for another 6 hours till she dozed off. An hour later she was roused by a doctor informing her that her husband’s heart had stopped and they were doing CPR. They sought permission to intubate him. But it was too late. On March 19, after their 33-hour ordeal, he died in the ER. She did not throw a fit or lose her mind but went home brokenhearted and defeated.  These days she asks people to pray for the Philippines and our hospitals because many people are suffering the same fate. 

Admit it, if we were in her shoes we would have moved heaven and earth, used all our connections to get immediate help. We would not have endured the long wait. We would have yelled and threatened the medical staff — no longer heroes in our eyes but villains. And when all our efforts would be in vain, we may even find ourselves denouncing God in our hurt and anger. How did she find the strength? Like Jesus, it was love that sustained her. Her faith in God’s mercy was so strong that she abandoned her life and her family to Him. Her story tells us that humanity is not lost. Evil and suffering will have no hold over us if we cling to Christ and bravely tread the path He leads us on, no matter how difficult. In Jesus we find hope and meaning in the cross.  We are invited to become fellow cross-bearers of Christ. We not only bear our own crosses but share in the suffering of others; united with the passion of Jesus (paschal mystery), our acts of compassion assure our brothers and sisters of God’s great love for them and the promise of redemption. This is what it means to be a follower of Christ. This is how we glorify God in our lives.

As Christians, we have the strength to say TGIGF! Thank God it’s “Good Friday”. We give thanks for this day we call ‘Good” in remembrance of God’s profound love for us through the passion of Jesus Christ. We reflect on how God in the person of Jesus has fully entered into our suffering, including death itself through the passion and crucifixion. As the Letter to the Hebrews boldly proclaims: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) Jesus knows and understands our pain when we suffer. He suffered far more than what we can bear. He knows our fear and anxiety when faced with death but He does not condemn us for it but instead promises that if we endure, He will be with us to strengthen us. Today is a privileged moment.  TGIGF! On this day, Jesus our Lord, suffered and died for all of us in a perfect act of self-giving love. For that we must always be grateful. If we have the love of God, nothing can ever break us.