HOMILY FOR GOOD FRIDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION YEAR C (3)

HOMILY FOR GOOD FRIDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION YEAR C

THEME:The Supreme Love of God

BY: Fr. Anthony O. Ezeaputa, MA.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Pena Blanca, NM, USA

HOMILY FOR FRIDAY APRIL 16 2022

As we all know, Good Friday is a part of the Paschal Triduum

HOMILY FOR GOOD FRIDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION YEAR C

THEME:The Supreme Love of God

BY: Fr. Anthony O. Ezeaputa, MA.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Pena Blanca, NM, USA

HOMILY FOR FRIDAY APRIL 16 2022

 

As we all know, Good Friday is a part of the Paschal Triduum. It is the day on which Christians and even non-Christians remember the crucifixion and death of the Son of God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, True God, and True Man. He died to set us free from the shackles of sin. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

Good Friday is the celebration of the ultimate act of love by God for the redemption and salvation of humankind. Let us reflect on how this act of love appeals to two human realities, namely the suffering of the innocent and the seeming absence of God in the midst of human suffering.

The most horrific scene in the story of the Passion of Jesus is without a doubt the one in which he cries out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” The words are taken from Psalm 22:2, in which the Israelites, suffering, oppressed, and despised for their faith, cry out to God for help. “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”

This scream of supplication, expressed by a people whose election and communion with God appear to have devolved into a curse, takes on new dreadfulness when said by him who is himself the redemptive nearness of God among men. The existential question is, “If Jesus is conscious of being abandoned by God, then where is God?”

Today, the echoes of this cry resound in our ears from the anguish of suffering in and around the world. My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine who are enduring a bloody war, as well as to the men and women fighting on cold war battlefields, from the slums of the oppressed, hungry, unemployed, sick, and despairing. We hear this scream from the innocent who have been wrongfully accused, and so forth.

The questions remain: where is the good and merciful God in the face of these agonizing human realities? Where are you, God? How could you create a world in which your most innocent creatures suffer the most horribly, as sheep are led to slaughter and unable to open their mouths?

Good Friday is God’s answer to all these questions. Good Friday is a time for more introspection and recognition of God’s love for us. His death on the cross is a shining display of love, of God’s immeasurable love, and of something we could never have asked, imagined, or anticipated: God bowed down over us. He descended to the lowest depths of our lives in order to extend his hand and draw us to himself, to bring us all the way to himself.

Where would we seek redemption from the consequences of sin and in the face of different harsh human realities if not from the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for us? The consoling message of Good Friday is the supreme love of God.

Today, let us renew our confidence in the power of that love, and let us believe that God is capable of defeating death, sin, and evil in every circumstance of our lives, our history, and our world, and of giving us new, resurrected life. Let us find the seed of new hope for life in the death of the Son of God on the cross.

As we adore the cross of the crucified Jesus this evening, let us ask him in prayer to enlighten our hearts, that we may follow him along the way of the cross. Let us ask him to put to death the “old man” that is bound by selfishness, evil, and sin in us. Let us ask him to make us “new men”, men and women of holiness, transformed and enlivened by your love. May Our Lady of Sorrow pray for us.

Fr. Anthony O. Ezeaputa, MA.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Pena Blanca, NM, USA

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