Weekly HOMILY for April 10, 2009: GOOD FRIDAY Picking up Your Cross

Good Friday Remarks
Our Lady of Grace
April 10, 2009

Picking up Our Cross
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato


Crucifixion

Picking up your cross is not exactly what we expected, it?

All the days of Lent, we have walked with a friend, a shepherd, a miracle worker, a storyteller, who seems to be inviting us to imitate him.

Yet, now, the road is uphill, full of pain and ends with a naked Savior nailed to the wood of a cross.


Crucifixion and Others

Lesser souls would shrink from the site. However, something compels us to follow him into crucifixion. He warned us that this was coming.

Our Catholic faith is not a “feel good,” “entertain me” religion. We know that discipleship requires laying down your life for the sake of love, just like the master.

Many have gone to the cross before us: Little St. Terese dying of tuberculosis in a French convent, Padre Pio persecuted for the sake of the stigmata, Edit Stein gassed into stillness because she was a Jew, Dorothy Stang and Stanley Rother dying by bullets of hate in Central America.

The list is not complete. It will continue as long as evil tries to conquer Jesus’ Calvary love.


Crucifixion and Us

We are rarely asked to be so heroic as the martyrs and saints. Our dying is less known, but still a part of the mystery of dying and rising.

In these pews is quite enough suffering to bring grace to all of us.

The beauty of entering Good Friday with our small crosses is that Jesus opens his arms wide to receive all we offer.

From the nagging pain of arthritic joints to a long endured grief, Jesus, in this final gesture of death, wants us near him.

He is like us in all things but sin. He is like us in pain, suffering, grief and dying.


A Sign of Hope

Because of this day we will never stand alone in our personal crucifixions.

The cross before us is the great sign of hope.

In the companionship of the communion of saints we walk up the hill and stand at the cross.

Teacher, shepherd, storyteller, he is finally savior.

We pray for the courage to bear the cross with him.