Reflections on Good Friday

I’ve been home sick for the past three days with a lot of time on my hands. So I picked up my copy of Fr. John Neuhaus’ Death on a Friday Afternoon. I have never read the entire book. I don't know how many times I've read the first 30 or 40 pages. I am determined to finish it this reading, no excuses. There are many parts of the book that strike home and there are many parts of the book that are difficult to accept. I will quote a portion from the first chapter.

‘Of the son [the prodigal son] it is said, “he came to his senses,” and coming to his senses he came to his father.

Good Friday brings us to our senses. Our senses come to us as we sense that in this life and in this death is our life and our death. The truth about the crucified Lord is the truth about ourselves.... The beginning of wisdom is to come to our senses and know the fearful truth about ourselves, that we have wandered and wasted our days in a distant country far from home. We know ourselves most truly in knowing Christ, for in him is our true self. Or so Christians say. His cross is the way home to the waiting Father. "If you would come to your senses," he says, "come, follow me."

In the ancient Christian fathers spoke of the Christ event as the “recapitulation” of the entire human drama. In this one life, all lives are summed up; in the eternal present of this one life, the past is encompassed, the future is anticipated and the life of Everyman and Everywoman is most truly lived. "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he said. Not a way among other ways, not a truth among other truths, not a life among other lives, but the way of all ways, the truth of all truths in the life of all lives. Recapitulation. It means, quite simply and solemnly, that this is your life, this is my life and we have not come to our senses until we sense ourselves in the life, and death, of Christ. This is the axis mundi.

"When I came to you," writes St. Paul to the Corinthians, "I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." Stay a while. Do not hurry by the cross on your way to Easter joy, for we know the risen Lord only through Christ and him crucified.'