good friday

In the Third Week of the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius proposes that we “ask for grief with Christ in grief, anguish with Christ in anguish, tears and interior pain…” During today’s contemplation on Christ’s Passion and Death, we perhaps face no great difficulty, as we have no shortage of pain and suffering brought by Covid-19, natural calamities and conflict. With Jesus shedding tears at the death of his friend Lazarus, we have lost to illness and infirmity many of our dearly beloved, some of who have passed on with only the company of PPE-covered medical professionals. With Jesus worried for the hungry crowds following him, we feel the pangs of need of those who have lost life and livelihood because of the pandemic, the Taal eruption and the litany of typhoons, Odette and Agaton being the latest. With Jesus welcoming and embracing the little ones, we are even pained by the wide-eyed incomprehension of faraway Ukrainian children and young girls, cramped into trains, sometimes with no family, relying on the mercy of strangers. Like Jesus carrying his Cross, we all carry the heavy burden of these overwhelming and different faces of pain, suffering and anguish that seem to be the many-headed beast of ancient stories. It does not leave us unscathed, and we have felt how it eats us up inside. I have seen marriages break up, the young pushed to self-harm, and many suffering from anxiety and depression. Thus we have become more attentive to what is clinically called “mental health.” Social psychologists describe how this pandemic of interior suffering isolates us more than the strictest lockdown, and how we find ourselves languishing, as in a prison cell without walls. Thus we understand why the Evangelist Matthew would not hesitate to put the Psalmist’s cry on the very lips of Jesus, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” But being with Jesus carrying his cross is not enough, as Jesus reminds the women of Jerusalem, “Weep not for me.” There is more to being one with Jesus in grief, anguish and pain. In his Passion and Death, Jesus is no mere victim of power-hungry Jewish elders in collusion with Roman colonizers. Much less is he the warrior-king out to win victory for his own glory. Jesus suffers on account of and for others. As we profess at every Sunday Eucharist, “for us and for our salvation, Jesus came down from heaven.” Ignatius’ contemplation even makes it so personal: “Jesus suffered for me.” I wonder how deeply we feel this. All this invites each of us to examine our own suffering. Is my suffering brought about by external circumstances, created by outside forces, catching me in the wrong place at an inopportune time? Aminin na nating minsa’y katangahan o, para hindi masakit, naivete? Is my pained resignation to extra judicial killings, creeping authoritarianism and the trampling of truth the disguised surrender to apathy and convenience? Is my suffering self-inflicted, caused by willful selfishness and intensified by self-pity? Are my broken relationships the bitter fruit of anger, envy and jealousy? All these forms of self-violence are nothing more than the absurd struggle of Sisyphus up the mountain or, worse, a mad dog running after its tail. But with Jesus in his Passover from suffering to new life, we break out of our prison when our own suffering is also on account of and for others. Like Jesus, an OFW mother sacrifices her isolation and safety in war-threatened places for her family and children. Like Jesus, countless volunteers spend themselves, time and resources, to safeguard the integrity of elections and to hold those in office accountable. Like Jesus, life-partners learn to live with their shadows and to forgive each other. Like Jesus, an urban poor family shares their ayuda with a neighbor in greater need. My dear friends in Christ, it is no coincidence that the Filipino word for moving on, for continuing is “magpatuloy.” This can only suggest that for us to move from suffering to new life, we must allow others to enter into our home. by Fr. Jose Mario C. Francisco, SJ Cenacle Retreat House | 15 April 2022