O Sacred Head Now Wounded

“O Sacred Head Now Wounded”
Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines
Good Friday
March 25, 2016

Meditation on the Way of the Cross
When the apostle Philip asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father”, He replied, “Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know Me? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:8-9) Today, as we accompany in our hearts while He makes His way beneath the cross, let us not forget those words. Even as He carries the cross, even on His death in the cross, Jesus remains the Son who is one with God the Father. When we look upon His face disfigured by beating, weariness and inner suffering, we see the face of the Father. Indeed, it is precisely in this moment that God’s glory, His surpassing splendor in some way becomes visible on the face of Jesus. In this astounding man whom Pilate, in the hope of eliciting compassion, showed to the Jews with the words, “Behold the man!” (John 19:5), we see revealed the true greatness of God, that mysterious grandeur beyond all our imagining.

Yet in the crucified Jesus we see revealed another kind of grandeur – our own greatness, the grandeur which belongs to every man and woman by the simple fact that we have a human face and heart. In the words of St. Anthony of Padua, “Christ, who is your life, hangs before you so that you can gaze upon the cross as if in a mirror….If you look upon Him, you will be able to see the greatness of your dignity and worth….Nowhere else can we better recognize our own value than by looking at the mirror of the cross” (Sermones Dominicales et Festivi, III, pp. 213-214). Jesus, the son of God, died for you, for me, for each of us. In this way, He gave us concrete proof of how great and precious we are in the eyes of God, the only eyes capable of seeing beyond all appearances and of peering into the depths of our being.

Prayer
Lord God, Almighty Father, Thou knowest all things and Thou seest, hidden within our hearts, our great need for Thee. Grant each of us the humility to acknowledge this need. Free our minds from the pretentious, wrong-headed, and even ridiculous notion, that we can master the mystery which embraces us. Free our will from the presumption, equally naïve and unfounded, that we can create our own happiness and the meaning of our lives. Enlighten and purify our inner eye, and enable us to recognize, free from all hypocrisy, the evil which lies within us. But grant us too, in the light of the cross and resurrection of Thine only Son, the certainty that, united to Him and sustained by Him, we too can overcome evil with good. Lord Jesus, help us in this spirit, to walk behind Thy cross. Amen.

1st Station: JESUS IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE
Gospel Reading: Matthew 26:36-41

2nd Station: JESUS, BETRAYED BY JUDAS, IS ARRESTED
Gospel Reading: Mark 14:43-46

3rd Station: JESUS IS CONDEMNED BY THE SANHEDRIN
Gospel Reading: Luke 22:66-71

4th Station: JESUS IS DENIED BY PETER
Gospel Reading: Matthew 26:69-75

5th Station: JESUS IS JUDGED BY PILATE
Gospel Reading: Mark 15:1-6, 15

6th Station: JESUS IS SCOURGED AND CROWNED WITH THORNS
Gospel Reading: John 19:1-3

7th Station: JESUS BEARS THE CROSS
Gospel Reading: John 19:6, 15-17

8th Station: JESUS IS HELPED BY SIMON THE CYRENIAN TO CARRY THE CROSS
Gospel Reading: Mark 15:21

9th Station: JESUS MEETS THE WOMEN OF JERUSALEM
Gospel Reading: Luke 23:27-31

10th Station: JESUS IS CRUCIFIED
1st Word: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
Gospel Reading: Luke 23:33-34a

11th Station: JESUS PROMISES HIS KINGDOM TO ONE OF THE THIEVES
2nd Word: “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
Gospel Reading: Luke 23:39-43

12th Station: JESUS SPEAKS TO HIS MOTHER AND THE DISCIPLE
3rd Word: “See, O woman! Here behold thy son beloved.”
4th Word: “God, My Father, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’
5th Word: “I am athirst!”
Gospel Reading: John 19:25-27

13th Station: JESUS DIES ON THE CROSS
6th Word: “Father, into Thy hand I commend My soul!”
7th Word: “It is finished!”
Gospel Reading: Luke 23:44-46

14th Station: JESUS IS PLACED IN THE TOMB
Gospel Reading: Matthew 27:57-60

A Time of Meditation
Jesus, disgraced and mistreated, is honorably buried in a new tomb. Nicodemus brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight, which gives off a precious scent. In the Son’s self-offering, as at His anointing in Bethany, we see an “excess” which evokes God’s generous and superabundant love. God offers Himself unstintingly. If God’s measure is superabundance, then we for our part should consider nothing too much for God. This is the teaching of Jesus Himself in the Sermon on the Mount. But we should also remember the words of St. Paul, who says that God “through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere. We are the aroma of the Christ”. Amid the decay of ideologies, our faith needs once more to be the fragrance which returns us to the path of life.

At the very moment of His burial, Jesus’ words are fulfilled: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”. Jesus is the grain of wheat which dies. From that lifeless grain of wheat comes forth the great multiplication of bread which will endure until the end of the world. Jesus is the bread of life which can satisfy superabundantly the hunger of all humanity and provide its deepest nourishment. Through His Cross and Resurrection, the eternal Word of God became flesh and bread for us. The mystery of the Eucharist already shines forth in the burial of Jesus.

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