FIRST READING: Isaiah 5O: 4-7. The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary. Morning by morning he wakens, he wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward. I gave my back to those with the whips, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. EXPLANATION: The second-Isaiah describes in these verses how the suffering servant---the Messiah---accepts the role of suffering which the Father had designated for him. He is to preach the message of God's mercy to men. Many will reject him and torture him, but God is on his side and he will not be moved from his resolute purpose by their insults and injuries. The lord has given me: It is God who has appointed him teacher of the people and has given him "a well---trained tongue," the gift necessary for his task.
how . . . word: His preaching will touch both friend and foe. The former will be moved to listen and obey---the latter will grow stronger in their opposition.
morning by morning His was a daily task, a difficult task, but:
I . . . rebellious: He continued notwithstanding the difficulties.
The Lord God . . . me: The source of his strength.
set my face like a flint: No insult or suffering would weaken his resolve (see Ez. 3:8, when God promises the same strength to Ezekiel).
I shall not be put to shame: All their insults and injuries (even crucifixion) will be in vain. He will triumph in the end.
SECOND READING: Philippians 2:6-11. Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. EXPLANATION: It is generally admitted that Paul is here quoting an earlier liturgical hymn in which the Judeo-Christian Church expressed its faith in the true humanity and the true divinity of Jesus Christ. He who was God, humbled himself to become a man like us, hiding his divine glory but receiving it back at his resurrection. Because of this, everyone must confess and adore his equality in divine glory with his Father.
in the form of God: He was divine and did not cease to be divine when he became man but:
emptied himself: He did not let the divine glory appear. Instead his humanity, the same as that possessed by all men, was what was evident. He was a truly obedient servant (slave) of God however, as all men should be, but were not. This true obedience led him to the humiliating death on a cross (see Isaiah in first reading).
God exalted him: By raising him from the dead on Easter morning God restored to him the glory of the divinity that he had hidden during his earthly life (see Eph. 1:21), and glorified his human nature.
name above every other name: Name stands for "person." He is exalted to the right hand of the Father in his humanity as well as in his divinity, the chief place in heaven after God the Father.
at Jesus name: The man who walked the roads and hills of Palestine, who ended his life on a cross, is none other than the Lord. Adonai is the name for God used by the Jews to avoid saying the sacred name Yahweh. It is God the Father who has proclaimed this, who "bestowed upon him the name" therefore:
every knee must bend: All men are bound to pay him reverence as God and:
every tongue confess: To proclaim their faith in the divinity of Christ the Savior. This is the basis of the Christian faith and the only hope of salvation for all.
to the glory of God the Father: His human nature also is sharing in the divine glory in heaven, the guarantee that our finite human nature can partake in some measure in this same divine glory if we have been his faithful brothers on earth. APPLICATION: As Christians we have no doubt as to the two natures of our Savior. He was the God-man. He humbled himself so low in order to represent us before his Father and by his perfect obedience ("even unto the death on a cross") earn for us not only God's forgiveness but a sharing in the divinity, through his being our brother but also the Son of God. These words of Paul, or rather of the early Christian hymn he is quoting, are for us today a consolation and an encouragement. Surely every sincere Christian must be consoled by the thought of God's infinite love for him, as shown in the Incarnation. We are not dealing with some distant, cold, legal God of justice who spends his time marking up our sins and failures against us. We are dealing with a loving Father who sent his own beloved Son to live among us and die for us in order to bring home to us the greatness of divine love. Could any human mind, even the minds of the greatest of this world's philosophers, have invented such a humanly incredible story of true love? No, it was only in the infinite mind of God that such a proof of love could have its source. What encouragement this should and does give to every sincere Christian. We know we are weak. We can and do sin often. We know we are mean and ungrateful and that we seldom stop to thank God for the love he has shown us. If we were dealing with a human, narrow-visioned God, we should have reason to despair, but when our Judge is the all- loving, all-merciful God how can even the worst sinner ever lose hope? No, there is no place for despair in the Christian faith. But there is room for gratitude and confidence. We can never thank God sufficiently for all that he has done for us. Eternity itself will not be long enough for this, but we must do the little we can. Let us face this coming Holy Week with hearts full of thanks to God and to his divine Son for all they have done for us. When meditating on the passion of Christ on Good Friday let us look with gratitude and confidence on the Son of God who died on the cross in order to earn eternal life for us. He did not die to lose us but to save us. He has done ninety per cent of the work of our salvation. And, even as regards the remaining ten per cent that he asks us to do, he is with us helping us to do it. Could we be so mean and so foolish as to refuse the little he asks of us?
GOSPEL: Matthew 26:14-27:66. EXPLANATION: Because of the length of this gospel (127 verses) the text is not printed here---it is easily available to any reader. Nor shall we give any detailed explanation, as the story of the passion is well known to all Christians; a brief summary must suffice. St. Matthew begins with the story of Judas,"one of the twelve," promising to betray Jesus to the chief priests, the arch-enemies of Christ, for thirty pieces of silver. Then comes the Passover meal on Thursday night, followed by the institution of the Blessed Eucharist. In the utterance: "I shall not drink wine until I drink the new wine with you in the kingdom of my Father," Jesus tells his disciples his next supper with them will be in the eschatological kingdom---the future life, where the new wine of that kingdom will be drunk (see 8:11; 22:1-14). Jesus foretells that they will all desert him in his hour of trial, and to Peter, who feels his faith would never waver, he foretells his threefold denial. Then comes the Agony in the Garden, where the human nature of Jesus shrinks from the sufferings he foresees, but yet he accepts the Father's will. He allows himself to be arrested by a gang of armed men, led by Judas who betrayed him with a kiss. The disciples scatter in fear. He is led before the Sanhedrin. Challenged on oath, he openly admits he is not only the Messiah, but is next to Yahweh, "the Power," in heaven. In this the Sanhedrin see that he is claiming a divine nature; hence he is condemned for blasphemy. On the morning of Friday he is brought, bound as a prisoner, before Pilate, the pagan Roman governor, to have the Sanhedrin's sentence of death officially confirmed. Pilate judges Jesus to be innocent and tries to convince his accusers of this, but fails. Fearing a riot, and anxious for his own position, he condemns Jesus to crucifixion, while washing his hands to show he is not responsible for his injustice. Having been scourged, a Roman prelude to crucifixion, Christ is then mocked by the soldiers. He is led out to Golgotha (Calvary) carrying his cross and is crucified between two thieves. While he is dying slowly on the cross his enemies jeer at him and challenge him to come down from it if he is king of Israel: "He saved others, now let him save himself." "He puts his trust in God, he said I am the Son of God, now let God rescue him if he wants him." Certain signs occurred: darkness suddenly covered the land, there was an earthquake, the veil of the temple (which separated the sanctuary from the Holy of Holies) was rent from top to bottom. Seeing these signs the pagan Roman centurion and the soldiers under him, were terrified and said: "In truth this was the Son of God." Joseph of Arimathaea, having asked Pilate for permission, had the dead body of Jesus buried in his own new tomb. The Jews, remembering Jesus prophecies that he would rise from the dead, got permission from Pilate to put a guard of soldiers around the tomb lest the disciples should steal him away and pretend he had risen. But the thought of Christ's resurrection was far from the disciples minds---they had forgotten or disbelieved these prophecies while his enemies remembered them! The stone at the door of the tomb was sealed and a guard mounted to prevent what was unpreventable. Christ rose the third day. APPLICATION: Is there any human being, not to mention any Christian, whose heart is so hard and so callous, that he could read or hear of the torments Christ endured during his last twelve hours on earth without being moved to pity and to tears? Even if the victim of this, the cruelest form of execution, crucifixion, were guilty of crimes against humanity, as were the two robbers crucified with him, our hearts should be filled with sympathy for him. But in the case of Christ we are dealing with a victim who not only had committed no crime, but was incapable of even a venial fault. He had come to save the whole human race---to make all men his brothers and thus co-heirs of an eternal life. To do this he had taken human nature in order to become our brother, and because of the sins of the world he had to die this excruciating death in order to save mankind from the effects of their sins, which would have been eternal death. Lest we might think that his being divine as well as human might have eased his sufferings in any way, we have proof of the opposite in his agony in the garden, and his pitiful call to his Father as he was dying painfully and slowly on the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" His human nature had to bear the full effects of the torments inflicted on him. This was the will of his Father, which Christ willingly accepted as the prophet Isaiah had foretold centuries before, when he described the Messiah as the "suffering servant" of God. Looking back today, on that sorrow-laden first Good Friday, there is not one of us who would not gladly have done everything in his power to ease the pains and the sufferings of our loving Savior if he had been there. But, mindful of any past loyalty or lack of loyalty to this Jesus who suffered for us, are we honest with ourselves when we express this sentiment? Did we never imitate Judas and betray Christ and his commandments for the sake of some few unjustly gained pieces of silver? Did we never let our pride and prejudice condemn, offend and unjustly injure out neighbor, just as the pride and prejudice of the chief priests and the Sanhedrin condemned Christ unjustly? Did we never crown him with thorns, and mockingly call him our king when we posed as loyal subjects of his while living lives of sin? Did we never imitate Pilate, who condemned an innocent man---a man he declared innocent---because he feared for his own future comforts and honors? Was our position in politics and power, or possessions, ever more important to us than the true following of Christ and his teaching? We could go on with our examination of conscience, but surely each one of us can see that he played, in a greater or lesser degree, the part not of a comforter or consoler of Jesus in his torments, but the part of one or other of the wicked actors in the tragedy of Calvary. However, we have the great consolation of knowing that Christ prayed for his tormentors on the cross (Lk. 23:34). and that he included us in this solemn request to his Father. We can still repent of our past sins and turn with confidence to him, assured that he will forgive and forget, and give us a new start. Let each one of us return from Calvary today, beating our breasts in sorrow for the pains and sufferings we have caused our loving Savior. He died an excruciating death so that we might live an unending life of happiness. We shall live that eternal life if we die now to our sins, our passions, and our weaknesses.-a142 Click to return to our Home page
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