What Love Looks Like

Good Friday.  Many still to this day ask "why is it good if such an awful thing happened?"  Fair enough question, I guess.  I remember thinking such things myself as a young child.  Simple to answer, but the truth of the answer is not so easy to really comprehend and digest.

By his passion and death, Jesus Christ proved his great and infinite love for all mankind.  He bought, with his suffering and blood, every blessing for us.  So, as terrible as it was for Him to go through it... without it there would be no Resurrection--  no Easter-- no life for those who believe in him.  Such love as He showed should humble the mightiest among us.  Such love should bring all humanity to its knees in humble adoration and appreciation.

Catholics, and other Christians, mark this day in multiple ways.  We fast, we attend services, we pray, we try to remain silent and reverential from noon to three pm, etc.  Whatever else we may do, though, we must not let it be "just another day."  Because it is not.  This is the day that began in pain and ended in sorrow... but it is also the penultimate step to the greatest and best thing to ever happen in the history of the entire world.

~~  "Even on the cross He did not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness to the presence of its Maker."  --St. Athanasius of Alexandria  ~~

If you've not seen Mel Gibson's masterpiece, "The Passion of the Christ," I strongly suggest it.  (I offer a warning that is is extremely graphic and does not flinch from depicting what our Lord went through.)  In making ourselves hyper aware of what He did for us-- almost to the point of "wallowing" in His pain-- we show that, in our small, human way, we understand and appreciate it.  

"He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed."  1 Peter, 2: 24

God bless.

-kmg