Good Friday

A few days before Good Friday of last year, my professor read our class a medical description of the crucifixion of Christ and then let us out of class early to allow time to digest it.

Horrifying doesn't even begin to describe the account. 

Considering the fact that I almost passed out during CPR training because of the repetition of the word "laceration", the imagery of the account did not bode well with me. 

After class, I just sat in front of Blessed Sacrament and tried to understand, How? and Why?

Love.

How? His Passion was made possible not by his willpower nor his strength, but by his total and utter love and willingness to submit to his Father's will. For God's will was that man, in spite of his total unworthiness and constant disobedience, should be eternally reunited with the Creator in a way that not even death itself could separate. 

Why? "He loved them unto the end." Wholly. Without reservation. The act that was hinted at during the washing of the feet was consummate at the Cross when God Himself offered his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to the Father as a final and eternal repayment for the wayward sons and daughters of Eden.

The Crucifixion should be described in graphic terms. It is the epitome of a paradox and the height of all human cruelty, the sins of man shouldered by the Son of the Father in the most brutal death ever suffered. 

He suffered the most because He loved the most. Nothing else could have motivated such an act. And now, over 2,000 years later, we are still dealing with the shock and horror of the event.