THE MYSTERY IN THE MESS

V/​ I will turn to you O God, 

R/​ to God who gives joy to my youth

V/​ Give me the Wisdom that sits by your throne; 

R/ that I may be counted among your children

Lord, in your all-providential plan, you have led me to this moment to rediscover me in your Word and Wisdom. Aid me to make this time of meditation and prayer enriching, transforming, and liberating for my well-being and others. Amen!

THE MYSTERY IN THE MESS

By Dr. Susan Muto

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 31(30): 2, 6, 12, 13, 15-17, 25; Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42

18th April 2025

The readings for today’s liturgy offer us many reasons to believe that this Friday, with its emphasis on death and destruction, torture and tribulation, malicious plots and sheer mayhem, can still be called “good.” Isaiah’s prophecy about God’s plan to right human wrongdoing begins with the prediction that “my servant shall prosper.” This promise implies that the lowly will be exalted and the downtrodden lifted up. The way this turnaround occurs will be painful to behold since the Servant to come, who will save us from sin, will be despised, rejected, and sentenced to death in the most horrific manner imaginable. His endurance of this affliction will astonish everyone who witnesses it. He will be marred so badly he will hardly be recognizable.

Psalm 31 addresses the fact that evil may try to crush our “rock of refuge” and invade our “strong fortress,” but God’s plan will prevail on the condition that our trust does not waver. Trust in our Savior, who is like “a broken vessel” surrounded by nefarious plotters whose aim is to take his life, must grow stronger when terror seems to have the upper hand.

Our second reading from Hebrews gives us yet another reason to celebrate Christ as our High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. On the cross, he revealed that his sacrifice would be for all of humanity. As a man of sorrows, he understood our need for healing and compassion. Though he himself was without sin, he empathized with our weakness and made us the recipients of his mercy. As Saint Teresa of Avila writes in The Interior Castle (1.2.8), “…believe me, we shall practice much better virtue through God’s help than by being tied down to our own misery.”

The Passion narrative itself from the Gospel of John unfolds in five major parts: his betrayal and arrest; the predicted denial of him by Peter; his interrogation, first by the high priest Caiaphas and then by Pontius Pilate; his being sentenced to death after being scourged and crowned with thorns; and his crucifixion, death, and burial.

Christ’s betrayal, devastating as it was, did not prevent him from drinking the cup [of salvation] given to him by the Father. Peter’s denial revealed our own fears of what we may have to endure to follow Jesus. In the end, what happened on this fateful night would prove once and for all that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn 4:18).

The last act in this Good Friday narrative comes to pass with his burial in “a new tomb which no one had ever been laid.” Aiding our meditation is this passage from The Interior Castle (7.4.15) where Saint Teresa writes: “…during the little while this life lasts—and perhaps it will last a shorter time than each one thinks—let us offer the Lord interiorly and exteriorly the sacrifice we can. His Majesty will join it with that which He offered on the cross to the Father for us. Thus, even though our works are small, they will have the value our love for him would have merited had they been great.”

The ultimate reason why this Friday is good rests in the faith that it takes us from the Place of the Skull to a soon-to-be emptied garden tomb. Christ crucified is the Risen Lord, and his kingship extends to the ends of the earth.