“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16, 17)
These moving words from the Gospel of St. John knock on the doors of our minds and our hearts in a special way at this intense time of conversion, on the threshold of Holy Week.
During the Easter Triduum, we in fact celebrate the incredible, indescribable love of God who so loved us that he gave his Son to save us from sin and death through his own death.
It is then a mystery of love, but also a mystery of suffering.
Why was the death of Jesus part of God’s plan? The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us the answer: “To reconcile to himself all who where destined to die because of sin God took the loving initiative of sending his Son that he might give himself up for sinners” (n. 118).
Through his sacrifice on the cross the Compendium of the Catechism says ‘Jesus freely offered his life as an expiatory sacrifice, that is, he made reparation for our sins with the full obedience of his love unto death … The paschal sacrifice of Christ, therefore, redeems humanity in a way that is unique, perfect, and definitive, and it opens up for them (us) communion with God” (n. 122).
In his infinite wisdom, God wants the mystery of suffering to become a source of redemption and salvation. By dying on the cross, after a terrible agony that led him to sweat blood as a result of the profound anguish that overwhelmed him, Jesus himself becomes a ray of light that illuminates the mystery of human pain.
Thanks to his passion and death, which we celebrate during these days of the Easter Triduum, we can say with the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4: 15)
In our own lives, we also experience the mystery of suffering. Jesus himself asked us, his disciples, to take our cross and follow him because he wants us to be associated with his redeeming sacrifice.
Pope Benedict XVI, during this Lent, explained that facing inexplicable human tragedies, Jesus invites us with his life to “reject the easy temptation to consider an evil as the effect of divine punishment.”
“Jesus invites us to read the facts differently, placing them under the perspective of conversion: misfortunes, painful events, do not have to arouse in us curiosity or a search for those presumed guilty, but they have to mean an occasion for reflection, to overcome the illusion of being able to live without God, and strengthen, with the help of the Lord, the commitment to change one’s life.” (Benedict XVI, Angelus of March 7, 2010).
The Holy Father also told us that “in the presence of suffering and mourning, it is true wisdom to let oneself question the precariousness of existence and to read human history with the eyes of God, who, always and only wanting good for his children, through an inscrutable sign of his love, at times allows them to experience pain, to lead us to a greater good.”
The mysteries we celebrate these days invite us to look up, abandoning any attitude of self-pity, and to accept the mission that the Lord has entrusted to us.
As I wrote recently in my pastoral letter, “knowing Jesus Christ and his love leads us to want to share that knowledge and love with everyone we know. Being reconciled with the Father and knowing ourselves, his beloved children, fills us with the desire to tell the whole world about the gift of his salvation” (“You will be my Witnesses,” 4).
During these holy days, let us take each others’ hands through the wonderful liturgy of the church, that leads us along the path that Jesus walked: his passion, death, and glorious resurrection.
Let us allow the redemptive and reconciling value of suffering to come into our lives during these days, to fill us with courage and hope, and to lead us to live the Gospel to the fullest so that we may be renewed and transformed by this Holy Triduum.
As I said in my pastoral letter, “today in the Church, we need that same faith in the power of the Gospel, that same apostolic zeal for souls; we need to renew in ourselves the conviction and the sense of duty that inspired St. Paul to say: ‘If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!’” (“You will be my Witnesses”, 7).
I pray with you that this Holy Week will be an occasion for conversion and renewal for our entire church in San Antonio.