Apparently it is a lot easier for Christians to gather for Christmas and fill the churches because it=s more close to home to see the child and the mother and to fancify the kind of warmth of the Christian life. And then of course when Easter comes the churches again are packed everybody wants to have the gain but not the pain. And so, this is the day that we really focus on what Christianity is all about. We focus on the centrality of the cross. And what are the facts of the cross? The first fact, of course is that God really died. Already in the early church this was not easily acceptable truth. The story is that a patriarch struggling to understand the mystery of God said, Aa god that is born, a god that dies, a god that is buried I cannot adore.@ We are fully aware then that when God died on the cross that it didn=t mean that there was only two persons in the Trinity but nevertheless, the central mystery is that God died. The second one is that God died and He suffered. Again early in the church this was a big struggle about did Jesus really suffer. And the truth is again and again the Lord has revealed His suffering to many saints down through the centuries and let them experience different parts of His passion. We know in Padre Pio=s life he had the stigma for fifty years. And of course psychologists would like to play with him so they tried to avoid him. One especially said, Awell, he meditated too much on the passion that=s why he has the stigma.@ So Padre Pio answered the psychiatrist and said, Awhy don=t you go in the field and meditate on a bull and see if you grow horns.@ Padre Pio suffered the wounds fifty years of his life. That means he never had a real deep rest. And in the life of many saints, just the one more recent in my reading, then Sr. Faustina asked the Lord to share his passion. Just a small part of it. And as soon as the Lord allowed this to happen she said she felt totally drained in strength and she was aware that if God wasn=t sustaining her she would have died. So those of us who think that just because Jesus is the Son of God he had an easier job of suffering is not true, it=s the contrary. He was enabled to suffer more. And the third point is, and very difficult for us really to accept that Jesus died for me, for you. This is a very hard truth to let in and it=s a grace to let it in. Jesus died for the thief on the right and the left. Jesus died for the Blessed Mother. Jesus died for you and for me. And Paul of course captured this when he said in the epistle to the Galatians, Athat Jesus died for him.@ And the fourth fact is that Jesus died out of love for you and me. He didn=t have to do this. It wasn=t circumstances that forced all this to happen. And so we read in today=s proclamation of the Passion that when the band gathers in the garden they asked, Awe are looking for Jesus of Nazareth.@ And Jesus says, AI AM.@ And everybody just flattens out on the ground. The proclamation of the gospel according to John at that point is simply saying Jesus is not being forced to do this. He freely accepted to lay down His life for you and me out of love. And so it says also in John=s gospel, Athat no one takes my life from me but I lay it down freely.@ So Jesus died for us out of love. Last but not least, Jesus= death won for us life. This was the beginning of the new creation. So it is the power and the wisdom of God made manifest and available to us. So on this day what are we going to do with these facts? That God died, that He suffered, that He did it out of love for you and me, and that this brings us salvation if we open our hearts to it. Certainly the first response should be that we would be extremely grateful and run to celebrate this feast but obviously this is hard for us, nevertheless, it=s central to our faith. For Jesus is kind of blunt, AIf you want to follow me, if you want to be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life, you have to lose it.@ And so this is the issue of Good Friday and just how centrally do we understand the mystery of the cross and its power and its transforming presence in our life? Where is the cross in our life? It=s easy to see the cross in other people=s lives. In the difficulties of being treated unjustly or thrown in prison, etc. but what about our life? What about where we are? If we=re a disciple it belongs to us. What are you avoiding? Who are you avoiding? What blocks you from becoming the saint God is trying to make you into? And how are you dealing with this? When we go through the Passion, when we go through any of the gospels, it=s a mirror.

Who am I in the Passion? Am I Judas? Am I the soldier? Am I the maid servant? Am I Peter? Who am I in the Passion? The Cross is crucial. Jesus said to Sr. Josepha Menendez one day, she was a little leery about His presence to her at this particular time in her life and He in glory and she didn=t sense the Cross. So she said, AI don=t know if I can believe that you are really Jesus.@ And then the Lord let her experience the Cross then He said, Awhere I am the Cross is. Where the Cross is I AM.@ So we don=t need to run from our crosses. We don=t need to fear them, we need to recognize them. For when we recognize the Cross in our life we can be sure that Jesus is there. That=s exactly where He is in our life. We have some difficulties, of course. We meet Christ crucified in many ways. One of the first places we meet Him is in Baptism, really. Then of course in the Eucharist as we said yesterday, whenever we eat this bread or drink this cup we proclaim His death until He comes. But you know the problem is that all of us may have been Baptized and therefore really share in the resurrected life. But we=re like the condition of Jesus raising Lazarus. Remember the passage? Jesus calls Lazarus forth, ALazarus come forth@ and he comes forth. But he=s covered with his burial clothes and Jesus says, A take off the burial clothes.@ That=s our problem, the place where the Cross is in our life is the place where the Lord is trying to take off our burial clothes so that we would live the new life that He came to give us. So remember and keep focused on this truth: where the Cross is in your life there Jesus is.

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