Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Manhattan
Commemoration of the Lord’s Passion
Good Friday 2024
March 29, 2024
Is 52:13-53:12, Ps 31, Heb 4:14-16.5:7-9, Jn 18:1-19:42
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided the homily:
- Today on Good Friday we ponder all that Jesus out of love for us suffered in order to save us. It’s difficult for us behold him, as Isaiah prophesied in today’s first reading, “marred … beyond human semblance,” with “no stately bearing to make us look at him,” “spurned and avoided,” “a man of suffering … from whom people hide their faces,” “held in no esteem,” “pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins,” “harshly treated,” “like a lamb led to the slaughter,” “oppressed and condemned,” “cut off,” and “smitten.” It’s painful for us to ponder him who loves us so, with the predictive words of today’s Psalm, as “an object of reproach,” a “laughingstock,” a “dread to [his] friends,” “like a dish that is broken.” It’s excruciating to actualize the Gospel as we see him betrayed by Judas, abandoned by the apostles, seized, bound, dragged, spat upon and struck repeatedly by the soldiers, interrogated in bad faith by the chief priests, the Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate and Herod, unpreferred even to Barabbas, scourged, crowned with thorns, scorned by the mob that clamored for his crucifixion, stripped naked, hammered to the Cross, mocked by the thieves, passersby and the chief priests, dehydrated to the point of dessication, and finally dead.
- John says that after Jesus’ unbeating heart was pierced by a soldier’s lance and a torrent of blood and water flowed out, it happened so that “they [would] look upon him whom they have pierced.” It’s agonizing to ponder Jesus like this, even though the prophets and psalms predicted that this would always be the fate of the Messiah. It’s grievous even though Isaiah in today’s prophecy stated that “the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him,” that “by his stripes we [would be] healed,” that “through his suffering, [he would] justify many,” that “he [would] take away the sins of many and win pardon for their offenses” and that he would receive “a portion among the great.” It’s terrible even though Jesus himself three times in the Gospel had confided that he would be betrayed, mocked, crucified and on the third day raised. Looking on Jesus pierced for our offenses, it’s normal for our eyes and heart to be filled with blood and water, with pain and sorrow, of their own.
- But as we behold Jesus this way, despised, drubbed, dead and seemingly defeated, the question asked in the high priest’s courtyard of St. Peter can likewise be asked of each of us. “You are not one of that man’s disciples, are you?” You don’t want to follow this guy, do you? You don’t live by this crucified loser’s teachings, do you? Didn’t he tell you that in order to be his disciple, you yourself need to pick up your cross each day and follow him toward crucifixion, right? You don’t want what happened to him to happen to you, do you? These are tough, direct questions, just as personal and poignant for us in 2024 as they were for Peter early in the morning on that first Good Friday.
- We know how Peter responded. Even though hours earlier during the Last Supper he had said, “Though all may have their faith in you shaken, mine will never be,” and “even if I should have to die for you, I will not deny you” (Mt 26:33-35), before the cock crowed a second time, he had three times denied even knowing Jesus. When the going had gotten tough, even though Peter really did love the Lord, even though he really was a fervent disciple and a chosen apostle, even though he had lived with Jesus non-stop for three years, even though he had heard him preach, make the blind sea, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame walk, the lepers cleansed, the winds calmed, the seas abated, the demons expunged and even the dead raised, even after he himself had been given the Lord’s authority to preach, heal the sick, expel demons and raise the dead, he denied that he was Lord’s follower and friend not just once, not just twice, but three times. Why did this happen to Saint Peter?
- Jesus himself gave us the fundamental reason in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Peter, James and John didn’t have the will to stay awake to pray. Jesus told them, “Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mk 14:38). Despite his bravado, despite the knife he would wield to cut off the ear of the high priest’s guard Malchus, Peter’s flesh was weak because he wasn’t yet a man of vigilant prayer. He didn’t realize the dangers. He wasn’t prepared through prayer to remain faithful when things got tough. Ultimately, he wasn’t ready for the Cross. When Jesus gave the first prediction of his Passion, it was right after Simon Peter, responding to the grace of God the Father, had confessed Jesus to be the Messiah and the Son of the Living God. But when Jesus told him that he would be a suffering Messiah, Peter objected and said, “God forbid it, Lord! No such thing should ever happen to you!,” before Jesus called him “Satan,” and told him to get behind him rather than to try to lead him. Peter, however, really didn’t learn the lesson. On later occasions when Jesus predicted his passion and betrayal, Peter and the other disciples, rather than praying about what would occur and being vigilant, just debated which among them was the greatest — and no doubt Peter, who had had his name changed by Jesus to “Rock,” would have been making his own case for intra-apostolic supremacy (Mt 16:13-26). Peter’s lack of seriousness in preparing for what the Lord Jesus had said numerous times would occur all culminated in the high priest’s courtyard when his weak flesh couldn’t summon the courage to confess with a willing spirit that he was indeed Jesus’ disciple and that Jesus was still very much the Messiah and Son of the Living God, to whom we should go because he has the Words of Eternal Life.
- Have we learned from Peter’s infamous and sinful failure? Each of us is here, not out of curiosity on a Friday afternoon, but because we are a disciple of Jesus. We do believe in him. We are grateful for loving us so much that he gave his life so that we might not perish but have eternal life. But are we ready to confess our faith in him, our friendship, when the going gets tough? When someone, for example, invites us to do something else on Good Friday than spend the day with Jesus or to spend time with them on the Lord’s Day than come to Mass, what do we say? How do we respond when someone pressures us into experimenting with drugs or tries to exploit our loneliness to take advantage of us sexually? How do we respond when our peers raise hot button political issues on which the obvious Christian position is unpopular? What do we do when telling the truth is inconvenient? How do we react when everyone else is cheating and we’re tempted to think we have to do the same in order to keep up? When people mock Jesus’ teachings on chastity, poverty and obedience in favor of hedonism, materialism and libertarian individualism? Or even when someone invites us for lunch on a Friday in Lent and orders us a hamburger? All of these are means by which our contemporaries say to us: You are not really that man’s disciple are you? You don’t really take his teachings seriously, do you? So the question is: Are we really Jesus’ disciple? Are we willing to suffer, even a little, for him? Are ready, through vigilant prayer, to suffer a lot for him who suffered everything for us?
- Last year I mentioned the powerful, award-winning 2019 movie called A Hidden Life about the martyr Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian Catholic who was executed by the Nazis in 1943 for his opposition to their ideology. There is a scene in which Franz, a volunteer sacristan in his village Church in Radegund, was helping an artist named Ohlendorf as he was painting in the Church a beautiful image of Jesus surrounded by angels in glory. But it wasn’t what Ohlendorfreally wanted to paint. The painter said that he really longed to be able to depict Jesus in his real exaltation, his real glorification, on the Cross, with his body torn apart, blood pouring down his face and from his wounds, a true icon of Isaiah’s words from today’s first reading. Trusting in Franz, Ohlendorf spoke of artists like himself working for Church commissions and said, “What we do is just create sympathy. We create admirers. We don’t create followers. Christ’s life is a demand. [They] don’t want to be reminded of it. … I paint their comfortable Christ, with a halo over his head. … Someday I might have the courage to venture, not yet. Someday I’ll paint the true Christ. … I help people look up from those pews and dream. They look up and they imagine if they [had] lived back in Christ’s time, they wouldn’t have done what the others did. They wouldn’t have murdered those whom we now adore.” Ohlendorf’s point was that, in Austria under the Nazis, there were many admirers of Christ, but few true disciples. The fans or admirers were all capitulating to the National Socialists despite all their lies and atrocities. Franz, on the other hand, proved to be a true disciple and remained faithful to his conscience all the way until the Nazis beheaded him. He remained a true disciple despite his cowardly parish priest and overly-calculating bishop both trying to persuade him to take a Nazi oath falsely just to save his life in this world. Even when those who were supposed to be true disciples were preferring a “comfortable Christ” and an easy-going Gospel, Franz was willing to stand up for the truth and not run away from the Cross. When he was asked, essentially, “You’re not that man’s disciple, are you?,” he firmly said that he was and he proved it. The same Lord who strengthened him will strengthen us if only we cooperate.
- To be a disciple of the Lord is to sign up to follow a crucified Savior and to follow him all the way. The Church seeks to make this clear at the very beginning of a Christian’s life. During the baptismal ceremony of a little child, after the parents give the child’s name and ask the Church for baptism, faith and eternal life for their child, they accept the responsibility of raising the child in the practice of the faith, and the Godparents commit to helping them in that supreme duty. Then the bishop, priest or deacon says to the child, “The Church of God receives you with great joy. In her name, I sign you with the Sign of the Cross of Christ Our Savior; then, after me, your parents and godparents will do the same.” He then makes a sign of the Cross on the child’s forehead, and the mom and dad, the godfather and godmother all do so. When I prepare young parents for the baptism of their child, I always ask them why, they think, the Church starts off the whole baptism ceremony by making the cross five times over their beautiful little son or daughter. The most common answer is, “I don’t know.” The second most common answer is, “We’re asking God to bless the child.” But then I ask, “Well, why don’t we just put our hand on the baby’s head if we’re blessing?” I then query: if at that point of the baptism ceremony, the Church were instead to ask all five of us to put a hemp stamp of an electric chair, or a noose, guillotine or some other sign of public execution on their beautiful baby’s forehead, wouldn’t they think that that was at least a little weird? They do. So then, I ask anew, “Why do you think we make a sign of the Cross on their forehead?” We are indeed blessing the baby, recognizing that the cross is not a curse but a blessing. When parents and godparents bring a child to be baptized, they are committing to raise the baby in the school of the Cross, which is not fundamentally a sign of pain, but of the love that makes even the pain of crucifixion bearable, as Christ has taught us. This is super counterintuitive for most parents, who would prefer their child never even to catch a cold. They have fairytale-esque hopes for their child whom they want to be happy all the days of life and therefore, they think, never suffer. But Christians preach a different message, of a love for God and others that includes a willingness to suffer, to die, and even to be crucified. After our baptism, as we know, we’re taught to make the sign of the Cross over ourselves. We begin and finish every Mass with the Sign of the Cross. The sign of the Cross is involved in every other sacrament and in almost every form of ecclesial blessing. And on Good Friday, we venerate the Cross, genuflecting before it like we would before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, because, as we’ll sing later in the liturgy, we recognize that on the wood of the Cross hung the Savior of the World. The Christian life is one marked by the blessing of the Cross from its beginning to its end.
- Good Friday is a day on which the Church puts before us the wood of the Cross and the Crucified Christ so that we know what we’re committing to whenever someone should ask, in one way or another, “You’re not that man’s disciple are you?” It’s a day on which we, looking at him whom we have pierced, learn how to love him and others as he has loved us first. It’s a day on which we are strengthened to make the commitment to follow Christ each day along the way of the Cross, to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow the Crucified one, and to find in the cross God’s power, wisdom and glory.
- Yesterday I received an email from a priest friend in Uganda who is a spiritual director in a seminary teeming with future priests. Every June 3, the feast of the Ugandan martyrs, I try to email him and to find out how they’re celebrating. The Ugandan martyrs are one of the greatest stories in the history of the Church. There were 22 of them, between the ages of 14-25, killed in the mid-1880s, just a few years after the White Fathers had arrived as missionaries. Because he liked the Christian teaching on the afterlife, the Ugandan king had allowed missionaries to evangelize among the members of his court, including the pages. Some Ugandan members of the court, having converted, began to evangelize others and help them renounce slavery, polygamy and other practices contrary to the Gospel, and to dedicate themselves heroically to serving those in need. When the baptized Joseph Mkasa and the catechumen Charles Lwanga began to recognize, however, that the king was homosexually-attracted to the teenage boys and solicitous to have them brought into his private company, they sought by various means to thwart the king’s designs and teach the boys how to resist his advances. The king grew increasingly frustrated. The King decided brutally to execute Joseph Mkasa for disloyalty, for having put the commands of another king, “The God of the Christians,” over him. He made it known that he was intending to put to death all the Christians in his court. One day, after the king returned from a fishing trip and saw one of the routine objects of his sordid desire receiving catechetical instruction, he summoned the catechist, St. Denis Ssebuggwawo, put a spear through his chest and then had his executioners hack him to pieces. The following day, the king, fuming, assembled all the pages and demanded that they make a choice between God and him, between life and death. “Let all those who do not pray stay here by my side,” he said, waving to his right, and “those who pray” he told to stand by the fence at his left. Charles Lwanga and over 20 Christian pages headed toward the fence. He asked them whether they intended to remain Christians. “Until death!,” they replied. “Then put them to death!,” the king responded, sentencing them to be burnt alive in Namugongo, a village 37 miles away. That is what happened. All of them, not long after their baptism, about the age of Columbia students and even younger, chose to remain Christians, chose to be people of prayer and vigilance, chose Christ and the Cross over their murderous leader and his corrupt court, chose eternal life over earthly life. When they were asked, “You are not this man’s disciples, are you?,” they all replied, with courage and conviction, that they were, that they indeed knew the God-man, and would remain true to him until death. They show us what is possible for every Christian.
- To be a disciple is to choose to stand before Jesus at the foot of the Cross, like Mary, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene and John. To be a disciple is to carry the Cross together with Jesus like Simon. To be a disciple is to be willing to say it to and live it, despite natural human fears. We strengthen our flesh against those fears each day by self-denial. Just as people in past centuries would take ice cold baths in the winter to prepare them better to handle the cold outside, just like good coaches work their players hard in practice to prepare them for game time pressures, just like those in boot camp are put into difficult training situations to prepare to endure and overcome them afterward, so self-denial helps us to be willing to carry the Cross, to be faithful in season and out of season. Picking up our Cross each day to follow Christ allows us to be able to pick it up when our own Good Friday comes and, in response to the question, “You’re not that man’s disciple, are you?,” to be able to reply like the Ugandan Martyrs, like Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, like Mary, Mary Magdalene, and John, “Yes I am,” with gratitude and unabashed. We are indeed disciples of Jesus, the one who loved us to the end, the one who prayed for us on Calvary, the one who has called us to follow him through Calvary to the eternal Jerusalem. We are indeed disciples of the one who has conquered the world. To him be praise and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power and might, forever and ever. Amen!
The Gospel of the Passion on which the homily was based was:
Gospel
Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley
to where there was a garden,
into which he and his disciples entered.
Judas his betrayer also knew the place,
because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.
So Judas got a band of soldiers and guards
from the chief priests and the Pharisees
and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.
Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him,
went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?”
They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.”
He said to them, “I AM.”
Judas his betrayer was also with them.
When he said to them, “I AM, “
they turned away and fell to the ground.
So he again asked them,
“Whom are you looking for?”
They said, “Jesus the Nazorean.”
Jesus answered,
“I told you that I AM.
So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”
This was to fulfill what he had said,
“I have not lost any of those you gave me.”
Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it,
struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear.
The slave’s name was Malchus.
Jesus said to Peter,
“Put your sword into its scabbard.
Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?”
So the band of soldiers, the tribune, and the Jewish guards seized Jesus,
bound him, and brought him to Annas first.
He was the father-in-law of Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year.
It was Caiaphas who had counseled the Jews
that it was better that one man should die rather than the people.
Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus.
Now the other disciple was known to the high priest,
and he entered the courtyard of the high priest with Jesus.
But Peter stood at the gate outside.
So the other disciple, the acquaintance of the high priest,
went out and spoke to the gatekeeper and brought Peter in.
Then the maid who was the gatekeeper said to Peter,
“You are not one of this man’s disciples, are you?”
He said, “I am not.”
Now the slaves and the guards were standing around a charcoal fire
that they had made, because it was cold,
and were warming themselves.
Peter was also standing there keeping warm.
The high priest questioned Jesus
about his disciples and about his doctrine.
Jesus answered him,
“I have spoken publicly to the world.
I have always taught in a synagogue
or in the temple area where all the Jews gather,
and in secret I have said nothing. Why ask me?
Ask those who heard me what I said to them.
They know what I said.”
When he had said this,
one of the temple guards standing there struck Jesus and said,
“Is this the way you answer the high priest?”
Jesus answered him,
“If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong;
but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?”
Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.
Now Simon Peter was standing there keeping warm.
And they said to him,
“You are not one of his disciples, are you?”
He denied it and said,
“I am not.”
One of the slaves of the high priest,
a relative of the one whose ear Peter had cut off, said,
“Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?”
Again Peter denied it.
And immediately the cock crowed.
Then they brought Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium.
It was morning.
And they themselves did not enter the praetorium,
in order not to be defiled so that they could eat the Passover.
So Pilate came out to them and said,
“What charge do you bring against this man?”
They answered and said to him,
“If he were not a criminal,
we would not have handed him over to you.”
At this, Pilate said to them,
“Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law.”
The Jews answered him,
“We do not have the right to execute anyone, “
in order that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled
that he said indicating the kind of death he would die.
So Pilate went back into the praetorium
and summoned Jesus and said to him,
“Are you the King of the Jews?”
Jesus answered,
“Do you say this on your own
or have others told you about me?”
Pilate answered,
“I am not a Jew, am I?
Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me.
What have you done?”
Jesus answered,
“My kingdom does not belong to this world.
If my kingdom did belong to this world,
my attendants would be fighting
to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.
But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”
So Pilate said to him,
“Then you are a king?”
Jesus answered,
“You say I am a king.
For this I was born and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
When he had said this,
he again went out to the Jews and said to them,
“I find no guilt in him.
But you have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at Passover.
Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”
They cried out again,
“Not this one but Barabbas!”
Now Barabbas was a revolutionary.
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged.
And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head,
and clothed him in a purple cloak,
and they came to him and said,
“Hail, King of the Jews!”
And they struck him repeatedly.
Once more Pilate went out and said to them,
“Look, I am bringing him out to you,
so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.”
So Jesus came out,
wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak.
And he said to them, “Behold, the man!”
When the chief priests and the guards saw him they cried out,
“Crucify him, crucify him!”
Pilate said to them,
“Take him yourselves and crucify him.
I find no guilt in him.”
The Jews answered,
“We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die,
because he made himself the Son of God.”
Now when Pilate heard this statement,
he became even more afraid,
and went back into the praetorium and said to Jesus,
“Where are you from?”
Jesus did not answer him.
So Pilate said to him,
“Do you not speak to me?
Do you not know that I have power to release you
and I have power to crucify you?”
Jesus answered him,
“You would have no power over me
if it had not been given to you from above.
For this reason the one who handed me over to you
has the greater sin.”
Consequently, Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out,
“If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar.
Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”
When Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out
and seated him on the judge’s bench
in the place called Stone Pavement, in Hebrew, Gabbatha.
It was preparation day for Passover, and it was about noon.
And he said to the Jews,
“Behold, your king!”
They cried out,
“Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!”
Pilate said to them,
“Shall I crucify your king?”
The chief priests answered,
“We have no king but Caesar.”
Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.
So they took Jesus, and, carrying the cross himself,
he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull,
in Hebrew, Golgotha.
There they crucified him, and with him two others,
one on either side, with Jesus in the middle.
Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross.
It read,
“Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.”
Now many of the Jews read this inscription,
because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city;
and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate,
“Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’
but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews’.”
Pilate answered,
“What I have written, I have written.”
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus,
they took his clothes and divided them into four shares,
a share for each soldier.
They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless,
woven in one piece from the top down.
So they said to one another,
“Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be, “
in order that the passage of Scripture might be fulfilled that says:
They divided my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.
This is what the soldiers did.
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother
and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary of Magdala.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved
he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”
Then he said to the disciple,
“Behold, your mother.”
And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
After this, aware that everything was now finished,
in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled,
Jesus said, “I thirst.”
There was a vessel filled with common wine.
So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop
and put it up to his mouth.
When Jesus had taken the wine, he said,
“It is finished.”
And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.
Here all kneel and pause for a short time.
Now since it was preparation day,
in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath,
for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one,
the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken
and that they be taken down.
So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first
and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.
But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead,
they did not break his legs,
but one soldier thrust his lance into his side,
and immediately blood and water flowed out.
An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true;
he knows that he is speaking the truth,
so that you also may come to believe.
For this happened so that the Scripture passage might be fulfilled:
Not a bone of it will be broken.
And again another passage says:
They will look upon him whom they have pierced.
After this, Joseph of Arimathea,
secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews,
asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus.
And Pilate permitted it.
So he came and took his body.
Nicodemus, the one who had first come to him at night,
also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes
weighing about one hundred pounds.
They took the body of Jesus
and bound it with burial cloths along with the spices,
according to the Jewish burial custom.
Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden,
and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.
So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day;
for the tomb was close by.
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