Endless love in action

On Good Friday, the Church commemorates the ultimate gift of God's love.  Here are some considerations motivated by today's liturgy which might help us to understand the Lord's invitation to love without limits.

Endless love (Part 2)

In the first part of this liturgy (that is to say last night, as we listened to the account of the last supper Jesus shared with his friends around the table in the Upper Room), we witnessed the surprise on the disciples’ faces as they watched Jesus modelling for them the extent to which we must all be willing to go in order to be his followers.  Everyone who is a beloved child of Jesus is privileged to receive the benefits of endless love that loves to the end.

Today, we have listened to Saint John’s account of the Passion.  We have heard the story of endless divine love recounted yet again.  It is the story of the author of love who was rewarded for his trust with the betrayal of one of his closest colleagues (cf Jn 18:3-11).  It is the story of love that is rewarded with denial (cf (Jn 18:15-18; 25-27).  It is the story of love that refused to speak anything but truth in its own defence, as though to do so would be to water down the gift that was being offered (cf Jn 18:20-21, 23, 36-37).  This is the story of love that was recognized not with a crown of gold but of thorns, not with a robe of silk but with one that was draped in mockery (cf Jn 19:2).  This is the story of love that was rewarded not with words of praise but with words of insult and gestures of derision yet love is stronger even than death, and our God was and is willing to go to any length, even to the point of suffering humiliation, torture and death on a cross in order to convince us that his love for us is boundless.

When Jesus sat with his disciples around the table at the Last Supper, he broke a loaf of bread and handed it to his disciples, saying to them: This is my body that is for you (1 Cor 11:24).  At that moment, they did not understand his gesture; neither did they understand the significance of the cup he held out to them, or the words he spoke: This cup is the new covenant in my blood (1 Cor 11:25).  Even as they saw him whipped, struggling beneath the weight of the cross and nailed to the wood, they were most probably too afraid to truly understand that what they were witnessing was the limitless love of God made visible for their sakes.

Even as he hung upon the cross, Jesus words were spoken in love: seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son and to the disciple he said, Here is your mother (Jn 19:26-27).  He knew that each would need the other to care for them, and he knows that we too cannot walk the road of faith alone.  We need to do this together, relying on each other, each of us doing our part to help and to strengthen one another, to urge each other to open our eyes so that we can recognize God’s love that is offered to us and the places and occasions where his love challenges us to love others.

Parched by the sun, his body being drained of all is life-giving blood, he uttered his final words: I am thirsty (Jn 19:28) and it is finished (Jn 19:30).  These are the words of one who was fully human and yet fully divine.  Only God gives the gift of life, and only he can take it.  There are some in today’s world who are questioning this truth. 

This past Monday, Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace was in Toronto to deliver the annual Kelly Lecture.  He began with an explanation of the Holy Father’s recent encyclical Laudato si’ which focuses on the care we invest in the earth, our common home.  He then went on to provide some practical applications of Pope Francis’ words in the matters of our relationships with Indigenous peoples and the question of physician assisted suicide.  When perennial truths about the dignity and sacredness of life are dismissed, he said, the enhancement of the individual can be extended too far, and result in people thinking: ‘I am the master of my own life.  My life is mine to control, and I have the right to end it whenever I want’.  This is an assumption that ignores the truth of our faith: the truth that only God is god, and we are not.

While God is the only one who has the right to make decisions about when and how our earthly lives will begin and end, the current situation is that there is no law in this land protecting an unborn child, and only 30% of Canadians are currently able to access effective palliative care in situations where they are facing an imminent end to their earthly lives.  If we truly want to be disciples of Jesus, to learn from him what it means to love with endless love, we should perhaps strive to model our lives on that of Joseph of Aramathea and Nicodemus who willingly came forward to provide the myrrh and aloes needed to anoint his body, the linen cloth to enwrap him and the tomb in which he was laid (Jn 19:38-42).  They gave what they had in his time of need.  Ought we not to be ready to do the same for the sake of those who need our help?