Christ's Passion (By FR. EMETERIO BARCELON, SJ)

source: mb.com.ph

MANILA, Philippines — Lent but especially on Good Friday, we have the opportunity to recall why we are Christians or followers of Jesus the Christ.

Also the opportunity to recall how much Jesus loves us. All He wants is for us to love Him back, to live for Him to suffer for Him, and perhaps to die for Him.

The Jews, the Chosen people, longed for the Messiah God had promised them. For centuries they looked forward to the Messiah but when He came they did not recognize Him. They had formed a different idea of how the Messiah would liberate them. They thought the liberation was from the oppression of foreign powers like the Egyptians, the Medes, or the Romans. But the Messiah came to liberate from our own weakness and sins and lead to a non-material world of perfect happiness. For the non-Jews, or gentiles like us, the emphasis has not been on a promised Messiah but a Redeemer and Liberator from weakness and sin. When Jesus, which means the Savior, came, He taught us the way to the Father and to redeem us from our own weakness and sinfulness.

We are Christians not only because we follow the teachings of Jesus. Even though these teachings are sublime, we are Christians because we have become part of Him. He loved us for no merit on our part but because He wanted us to share His happiness and glory. He not only taught us by words but also by example that to love God means to give up all except what is God. This means we may have to go through suffering to purify ourselves; to be willing to give up comfort and ease for the love of God.

All He wants of us is to love Him back, nothing else. This love can translate into adoration and thanksgiving and to ask for His mercy since there is nothing we can do or be that could deserve the love of God. We are creatures that have strayed and to fiad our way back depends completely on the Divine Mercy. In order to show us the way, Jesus was willing to suffer the most cruel torture of the crucifixion and death. But we must not forget it ended up in the resurrection. He came back to life and that is the main tenet of our Christian faith. Although there is suffering and death, there is resurrection.

It is but right and proper for us in this season to reread the Passion of Christ in the Scriptures. The Liturgy has these readings but it is good that we also read it in private. In the Gospels and in the letters of St. Paul, we have accounts of the Passion. In the Tagalog regions, there is the custom of the Pabasa of the Passion and in many places, it is still practiced. The problem is that the reading gets obscured by the singing and the archaic Tagalog in which it is sung.

The right intention is there of collectively reading the Passion of Christ but we may not get the full profit from it or be able to reflect on it and apply it to ourselves. Private and individual reading in these last days of Lent may be good for the soul. Reading it in different languages that we know might help us get insights of the basic mystery of our faith. He loved so much that He was willing to suffer crucifixion and death for our happiness and well being. Although we must always end with the resurrection. The classic prayer of the eastern church is: Lord Jesus Christ son of the living God have mercy on me a sinner.

source: mb.com.ph