Good Friday

Each and every one of us have experienced suffering in one way or another at certain points of our lives. We can try to deny it, we can try to hide it, we can try to find ways and means to distract ourselves from it, we can even try to fool ourselves into thinking that it is okay or an illusion, but the fact is, suffering is a very real thing.

But one significant event brought suffering to a different level and meaning. God died on the cross. God allow himself to be crucified on the cross for our sake. He died on the cross to redeem us and to save us from our sins, as what Isaiah reminds us in the first reading: "And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrow he carried. But we, we thought of him as someone punished, struck by God, and brought low. Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed." Thus, we should not see suffering as a bad thing, we should not think that God does not understand what we are going through, since Jesus suffered and died for all of us because of His immense love for us.

When we become aware of the significance and the power of the cross, we become witnesses of Jesus. We become more sensitive, compassionate and understanding to the needs and sufferings of others. Jesus, while suffering on the cross, did not forget about others. He reached out in love to all around him. For his enemies, he asked for forgiveness; for his mother, he found a new home by giving her to his beloved disciple, and in doing so, giving her to all of us who are like that beloved disciple; for his disciples, he made sure that they would continue to support each other. Thus, let us set aside our anger, self-pity, hatred, pride, prejudices and bitterness, so that we may give ourselves in love and selflessness to others, just as Jesus did for all of us. Let us, as the second reading remind us, "be confident, then, in approaching the throne of grace, that we shall have mercy from him and find grace when we are in need of help."