Allocutio at April 2014 Concilium Meeting by Fr. Bede McGregor OP

GOOD FRIDAY

Our meeting today takes place on Palm Sunday. It is the first day of Holy Week, the most momentous week of the Liturgical Year of the Church. Indeed, the most momentous week in the life of Christ Himself especially the last three days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday culminating in the Easter Vigil and joy of the risen Christ. It is the week that shaped the Church at its very beginning and continues to shape the very heart and soul of the Church today. It transforms the deepest centre of every Christian and is of course, of the utmost importance for every legionary. Today I wish to reflect on Good Friday and its place in our lives.

The greatest challenge in the life of each one of us is our friendship with Christ. On Holy Thursday in His last most intimate conversation with his disciples, He says: ‘Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends… No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, for all that I have learned from my Father I have made known to you. (Jn:13-15). Now we grow in friendship with Jesus by meeting Him often in the sacraments and by contemplating Him in his words, deeds, and sufferings especially as recorded in Holy Scripture. Above all we come to know Christ in his death on the Cross.

We recall the utter conviction of St. Paul: ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ (Gal 2:20) or ‘Far be it from me to glory except in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.’(Gal. 6:14). The centrality of the Cross in the teaching of St. Paul simply reflects the profound conviction of the Christian community from its very beginning. The event of Good Friday has totally changed the whole meaning of human existence and history. The death and resurrection of Christ provide us with the absolute certitude of Christian hope. Our personal lives have no ultimate meaning apart from the sign of the Cross.

But not everyone sees Good Friday as the authentic Christian sees it. St. Paul tells us: ‘The Jews demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block for the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.’(Cor. 1-20) and today the Islamic world sees the passion narrative of the death of Christ as blasphemous and a scandal. Also, the vast majority of the population of the world have not yet adequately heard the good news of Good Friday.

We are called to be specialists in the basic revelation of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We are privileged to see the very heart of God beyond the sheer brutality of the Crucifixion, beyond the apparent absolute abandonment of Christ and what might seem to be the total failure if his mission. The Cross proclaims that God loves us infinitely, personally and passionately while we are still sinners. This is the radical meaning and message of Good Friday. St. Augustine putts it well: ‘It is not the nails that keep Christ nailed to the Cross but his love for each one of us.’ There can be no better news than that we are called to proclaim this truth to the whole world. It is the love of God revealed in the passion and death of Jesus Christ that is the soul of our Legion apostolate, indeed every apostolate in the Church.

Instinctively, we legionaries look to Mary as our guide and companion during Holy Week. Nobody knows and understands more about the Cross of Jesus than Mary. She will teach us more than anyone else the wisdom and Gospel of the Cross. As a very young mother she was told that a sword would pierce her heart. At Cana she was told that ‘the Hour’ of Jesus had not yet come. Finally, John puts it so succinctly: ‘By the Cross of Jesus stood his Mother.’ For that sentence alone John deserves to be a patron of the Legion because that verse enshrines the role of Mary in our redemption. We cannot leave her out of Good Friday.

It could be said that Our Lord had three thoughts in his mind while He was dying. He was the Son of God, so never stopped thinking of the Father. He was the Son of Mary, so He never stopped thinking of his Mother. He was the Saviour and Redeemer of the world, so He never ceased to think of us poor sinners. Could we not also have these three thoughts in our minds throughout Good Friday in imitation of Christ Himself?

Finally, Good Friday reminds us of the extraordinary value of suffering in our lives; it teaches us that our suffering can be co-redemptive; it is one of the most privileged apostolates in the world. Let me also quote the Handbook: ‘So the legionary will unfold the idea of the apostleship of suffering. The patients should be taught to busy themselves with the spiritual affairs of the world, offering the treasures of their sufferings for its myriad needs, and conducting a campaign whose force must be irresistible because it is at once prayer and penance.’ The apostolate of suffering was the sublime apostolate of Christ on the Cross; it gives life to the whole world and releases limitless grace and hope to all of us.

Let me sum up what I have been trying to say in this allocution with the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians: ‘When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words of wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.’ (Cor.2: 1-5)

A grace filled Holy Week and a Happy Easter to you all.

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