The Virgin is the source of our hope

Homily for Good Friday Passion of our Lord according to St. John

Each year on the Friday we call “good,” we read the beautiful account of our Lord’s passion and death according to the Gospel of St. John. The Church does this because it is St. John who reveals the deepest secrets of the heart of Jesus, the most precious and intimate words and gestures of Christ.
Many are the secrets that St. John reveals to those who look for them by meditating on St. John’s Gospel; I want to mention just a few of the secrets that St. John reveals and shares with us. There is the resting of St. John on the bosom--on the heart of Jesus; Jesus’ witness to the Truth before Pilate; the great gift of Mary to the beloved disciple; and the wounding of the heart of Jesus by the soldier’s lance. Much of course can be said, but I want to look more closely at one of the secrets I just mention, that of the great gift of Mary to the beloved disciple. I think that in this secret that St. John has given us a precious gift to help us enter into, and live more deeply the Pascal mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.
The Virgin Mary is the one who stands with the strength of faith at the foot of the cross. The most extreme moment for our Lady is to watch her Son slowly being tortured to death, in fulfillment of all the prophecies about the death of the suffering servant, such as the one we heard in our first reading from Isaiah. Jesus gives the gift of His Mother to St. John, to help John’s faith in the midst of this terrible moment of Jesus suffering.
The gift of the Blessed Mother is a gift to John that will also help him in the terrible moments of his own sufferings to come. But through John, Jesus also gives this gift to us. Jesus gives us, as He gave St. John, the great gift of His Mother, as we too struggle with the darkness and suffering of our own sins. She is the gift to help us in our crosses, in all of our pains, sufferings and of course in the hour of our death. She is present to us to strengthen our faith if we call upon her powerful intercession. It’s interesting that St. John who was the first to receive the gift of Jesus’ mother, will also be the first apostle to believe in the resurrection.
This gift of the Virgin is given to us so that we will be able to enter into, be able to live in our own bodies, the mystery of the death of Jesus; for as Jesus had to pass through suffering and death to reach the resurrection, we too must pass through suffering and death to reach the resurrection.
The Virgin is the source of our hope. We are afraid, for we don’t know what is in store for us, what cross is in store for us with its pains and sufferings, with it’s death. But, if we ask her in confidence she will obtain for us the grace we need to, not only endure the cross in our lives, but to unite it to Jesus’ own suffering and death, to united it to his cross so that our cross will become our hope, our beacon, our joyful means to life, to eternal life, for ourselves and for others. She will help us to allow Jesus by the power of His cross to transform our suffering and pain into love to become a source of life…
This is transformation occurs when one accepts ones cross. This is the difference between the Good thief and the bad thief. The Bad thief refused his cross, refused to allow the transformation of His suffering and pain by the power of Jesus cross. The Bad thief allowed His pain and suffering to turn to bitterness and anger, thus transmitting this venom by blaspheming Jesus and saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!"
The good thief however allowed his suffering to be transformed by the power of Jesus suffering, death and resurrection. He accepted His cross as a just reward for His sins rebuking the other by saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed suffer justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
The Church, after the Second Vatican Council, restored Holy Saturday. Nothing happens on Holy Saturday, for it is a day of preparation, just as it was for the first believers. For us, Holy Saturday is a day of silent preparation for the resurrection, a day to spend in expectant hope with the Virgin in contemplation of Jesus great love for us—“He who love us to the end.” On Holy Saturday the entire world is ushed in silence awaiting that most glorious event that broke the chains of sin and death for ever for those who would believe. We enter the tomb with Christ, to die to our old life of sin that we might share more fully in the joy and power of the resurrection. May our faith strengthened by the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, prepare us to celebrate with Joy, her Son’s resurrection, not only on Easter Sunday, but fully in our lives. Then we too will hear those beautiful words of Jesus addressed to us, "Truly, I say to you, this day you will be with me in Paradise."
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