Prayer of the heart. Good Friday Saint Eustatius of Luxeiulle. Is it You,
Lord who has suffered death for me to live? How can I rejoice
in my freedom if I owe it to your bonds? Is it You,
Lord who has suffered death for me to live? How can I rejoice in
my salvation if he has acquired it for your suffering? Is it You,
Lord who has suffered death for me to live? Lord You, you have
suffered because you have loved for love and mercy. Is it You, Lord
who has suffered death for me to live? The Gospel today is the passion
of Lord I believe, an extract, concretely from the Gospel of St John,
passion Lord Jesus Christ. According to St John, at that time Jesus
went out with his disciples on the other side of the cedron stream, where
I saw a garden and he and his disciples Judas entered there. The traitor
also knew the place, because Jesus often met his Jewish disciples there. Then,
taking your guard and some smoke guards, priests and Pharisees, he entered
there with lanterns, torches and weapons. Jesus, knowing all that was coming
upon him, went forward and told him who you are looking for. They
answered Jesus the Nazarene and Jesus told them I am. They were also with
him, Judah, also with them Judah. The traitor, when I told
him I was, retreated and fell to the ground and asked them again who
you are looking for? And they told Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus answered you.
I said I am. If you look for me, let these go.
And so he fulfilled what he had said. I haven' t lost
any of the ones you gave me. And Jesus answered him. My kingdom
is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my
guard would have fought that it would not fall into the hands of the Jews.
But my kingdom is not from here. Pirato told him that you'
re king. Jesus said to him," You say so I am king
" Me. For this I have been born, and for this I have
come into the world to bear witness to the truth, because everyone who is
of the truth hears my voice. And Pilate told him and what the truth
is. Then he gave it to him for crucification. They took Jesus and
carrying the cross, went out to the place called La de la caravera which
in Hebrew is called golgotha where they crucified with him two others, one,
one pierced and in the middle of p and a half. Jesus pyrato wrote
a sign and put it on top of the head of the cross. In
it was written Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews. Many Jews
read the sign because it was near the place where Jesus was crucified and it
was written in Latin and Greek Hebrew. When Jesus took viragre, he said
it is fulfilled and inquitting his head, he handed over the spirit to the
Jews. Then, as it was the day of the preparation parasceve that the
bodies should not remain on the cross of the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was
a solemn day, they asked Pilate to break their legs and to remove them.
The soldiers left and broke the legs of the first and then of the
other who had crucified with him, but when they came to Jesus, seeing
that he had already died, they did not break his legs, but one
of the soldiers with the spear, passed over the side and blood and water
came to the point. And after this, Joseph of Arimathea, who was
a clandestine disciple of Jesus, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to
let him take Jesus' neck, and Pilate authorized it. It was him
then and he took the body. Godemo also came, who had come to
see him at night and brought about a hundred pounds of Mirra and Heroiaoe’
s visture, and they took Jesus’ body and bandaged it all with only
more as it was customary to close the Jews. There was a garden in
the place where the cross and caron and in the garden a new tomb where
no one has been. It had been buried in land yet and as for
the Jews it was the day of preparation, the sepulchre was near. They
put Jesus there. I recommend that you personally read the whole test. I
' ve read only one piece. We have just heard the story of the
passion of crilde, sir, and we have let the heart expand, that
it joins the Lord, because we want to share in his pain to understand
thus the love that has us. We don' t understand all his love,
but that' s why we don' t understand all his pain.
You tell John of avila. The whole life of the Lord was directed to
this supreme moment. I had longed for years for the distant one who was
going to redeem us. Only he had been able to appreciate the great misfortune
that it was for man to be an enemy of God. The Cross that
until the end, until that moment, had been a suffame and dishonorable instrument,
became as the liturgy sings in light, the tree where life begins.
The intensity of Christ' s pain is enormous and leads him to cry out.
Oh, my God. My God, why have you forsaken me with
these initial words. Safe twenty- two. The Lord is revealing the deepest
sense of the mystery of the incarnation Jesus on the Cross. That is at
once God who listens and man who pleads as God is happy and as a
man coxist unhappiness and pain. Happiness because everything is being fulfilled according to the
channels of God' s love, physical pain, the most intense, what
can be suffered, because his sensitivity was the most delicate he has ever attended.
And moral pains because with his botanical vision he watches, on the one
hand, the infinite merciful holiness of God and, on the other, the
sins of all men of all times, including ours. Therefore, he thought
of each one of us and, in every way, poured out his sacrifices
and those words of the twenty- second century. Oh, my God,
my God, why you' ve abandoned me. They are of pain,
but not of despair or rebellion, but of hope. They are the answer
of man God to those who edited him without understanding how he had saved others.
Don' t save yourself. Jesus did not want to save himself willingly
gave himself on the cross to death to save them. The Lord within Jesus
terrible that suffered you aunt his soul full of intense joy. With those suffering
arms drilled on the cross, he was receiving the man, saving the mincer
man a well- known book about pressing sir concreted the palm pad he said
he saw and that filled him with joy. She ate to be loved and
heard the cross because he was going to die on it. He saw the
martyrs who, by their love and by defending the truth, would suffer a
more similar martyrdom. He saw the love of his friends, He saw the
tears before the Cross. He saw the triumph and victory that Christians would achieve
with the weapon of the Cross. He saw the great miracles that with the
sign of the Cross were to be done throughout the world. He saw so
many men who with their lives were going to be holy because they knew how
to love to die with him and they mentioned sin. The fruits of the
cross did not wait for one of the thieves. Recognizing their sins, Jesus
is asked, Lord remember me when you are in your kingdom. He is
the first repentant man of sin. He doesn' t want me to free
him from the cross. He wants to spy on his fault due to his
fault, to bad cross, to bad pain very close to that of Jesus
is to his mother. Like other holy women. Also there was John,
the youngest of the tenpostles Jesus, seeing his mother and the disciple whom he
loved who was there, told his mother Etrs wife to your son and then
said the disciple and there to your mother. And from that moment the disciple
received her into his house. Yesterday Thursday, Santo, at the last dinner,
the Lord Teaches has given us himself. He now gives us what he
wants most on earth, because he also loves us very much, his mother,
the Blessed Virgin. Not only will he not give you protection or affection,
but his attitude to his son' s cross will give us confidence so
that we too will come near without fear of the cross and there we will
really find Christ. We can identify with him and be other Christs, Christ
himself prays with all your heart these stanzas of the painful stabat mater that sweet
source of love. Make me feel your pain. Make him cry with you.
They have made me weep with you and hurt me of your beings,
their sorrows while I live, because I want to accompany you on the cross
where your compassionate heart sees it. Make me fall in love with his cross
and let her live and dwell. You gave the blessing God, merciful father,
who left us the end of his love in the passion of his son
in unbegotten. Grant you the admirable doubt of his blessing for the service of
God and men, for you believe that by temporary death he told him to
be delivered from eternal death. Give you the reward of the sweet future life
and follow his examples of humility. You perish from his resurrection and the blessing
of God, every mighty father, son, and holy spirit, saying to
his work to you, if you accompany yourself, always amen