Dear ZENIT Family,
There
are two days in the year that the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ is
read in full. Both days happen in the same week: Palm Sunday and Good
Friday.
It’s
true that it’s a very long passage of the Gospel, which, in essence,
recounts the last days of Jesus’ life on earth, before His Resurrection.
In both days we can see a special contrast: while on Palm Sunday the
people acclaim and hail Jesus, who enters triumphally in Jerusalem, on
Good Friday those same voices cry out “crucify Him!” What has
happened?
It’s
a fact: we are fickle. We easily change our mood. And our mood also
changes very often in relation to God. It’s very easy to be His friend,
to accompany Him or to seek Him when things are going well. It’s very
simple to be on His side when He is popular, loved, appreciated by all.
But how difficult it is to stay with Him when things aren’t as we would
like them to be, as we hope for, or when the environment is hostile to
Jesus Christ.
I
remember that once a woman came to me who was angry with God, because
her daughter had suffered an accident and she wondered why God “had done
that to her.” I listened to her patiently and waited until she
unburdened herself. Then I asked her a question: “Sorry, but was Jesus
driving the car?” She realized that she had faulted God for something He
hadn’t done. God has given everyone and, in exercising that gift of
freedom, a driver, inebriated, used it badly and crashed against the car
of that girl who, exercising her freedom, chose not to use her seat
belt.
It’s
significant that, when dying on the cross, the Lord didn’t say that He
was doing so only for those who had not cried out for His crucifixion.
God is unjust: yes, you’ve read it correctly. God is unjust and He is so
because He gives us much more than we deserve. If He gave us only what
we deserve, we’d be lost. But He gives us much more. And, on
acknowledging the Lord’s giving Heart, we are compelled to see our own,
so often fickle, mean and imperfect.
Jesus
knows our weakness, but He doesn’t want to leave us weak. If we have
ever turned our back on Him, it’s good that today someone tells us that
He will not do the same to us. As we begin Holy Weeks, we need to ask
for the gift of fortitude, that gift that makes us grateful to God amid
blessings, but which also gives us the certainty of knowing that we’re
not alone when facing adversity. Even if at times we haven’t been good
children of God, He will always be a good Father to His “bad children.”
And that encourages us to be every day less so.