Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion
In today’s first reading, God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah. God says, “See, my servant … a man of suffering … spurned … held in no esteem.”
In the second reading, from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we learned the name and identity of this servant. It is Jesus who was “able to sympathize with our weaknesses.”
The Gospel described the suffering Jesus endured on Good Friday: the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, and finally the crucifixion.
Bach, in his “Passion according to St. Matthew,” incorporated a German Lutheran version of a late medieval hymn; it is the very familiar “O Sacred Head Surrounded.”
O Sacred Head Surrounded
By Crown of Piercing Thorn!
O Bleeding Head So Wounded,
Reviled And Put To Scorn!
Death’s Palid Hue Comes O’er Thee,
The Glow of Life Decays,
Yet Angel Hosts Adore Thee
And Tremble As They Gaze.
Jesus suffered for us. But this is not just something in history. This is not the end of the story. On the cross, Jesus becomes the symbol of every human person who is mistreated.
Think of the millions of people throughout history whom those words describe.
There is a Negro spiritual that comes to mind. Reflect on the cruelty of slavery, how a mother and a father and their children were separated and sold.
Maybe we can understand, maybe just a little bit, how the African-American slaves could sing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen; nobody knows the sorrow. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen; nobody but Jesus.”
Reflection: How much racism is still present in our world! What is my response?
Reflection by Archbishop Jerome Hanus, OSB
Posted in Articles for Lent, Daily Reflections, Lenten Resources