Triduum Homilies: Canon Pat Browne on Good Friday

Canon Pat Browne gave the following sermon on Good Friday at Holy Apostles in Pimlico.

Each week during Lent I have been doing the Stations of the Cross with a different class from our school.

Let me share with you three reflections I have had from these days with the children.

I look at the three stations where Mary is featured. She meets him on the road to Calvary (4th), she stands at the foot of the Cross as he dies (12th) , His dead body is laid in her arms when it is taken down from the Cross (13th). I see her helplessness. And her sorrow. From the time she gives birth a mother experiences her child bringing pain to her. But not all pain is destructive. Indeed some is life-giving as is the pain of childbirth.

I think of Mothers today who share this sadness of Mary. I think of the young soldier killed in Afghanistan. The plane lands at Brize Norton carrying home the body. The parents see the coffin unloaded and wheeled into a hanger where presumably the lid is lifted off so that they can see their child and Mum can cradle him or her as Mary cradled Jesus when he was taken down from the cross. I think of my visit to Great Ormond St last week to pray with the family of a 13 year old girl who two weeks before was fit and healthy and was now only being kept alive on machines. I confirmed her, prayed with her Mum and family and in that prayer we gave her back to God. Then the machines were turned off and within the hour the child was dead. This was the experience of Mary standing at the foot of the cross helpless, broken-hearted and unable to do anything to effect the outcome. This sort of pain is the pain of Love. It is redemptive. This sort of pain saves the world.

Then I see Jesus falling - not once but three times. So many people have burdens that just get too heavy for them, and though they sometimes stumble and fall under the weight of them, they do not give up. They get up again and carry on with needs to be done. Some of these burdens are not of their own making. Life's responsibilities. I find some parents nothing short of heroic in the sacrifices they make for their families. There are neighbours and Friends who go the extra mile for someone in need. But it is heavy and sometimes too much and it takes its toll. Again, the only thing that makes sense of it and keeps them going is Love. Because they love this person they get up time and time again and keep going.

Thinking too of the falls of Jesus. I think of ourselves in our battle with sin. We want to be good. We make very determined resolutions to be good, then fall again into old habits and destructive ways. How easy it is after a number of failed attempts to think , "what's the point" I just can't do this. I am useless" and think of giving up. But no, Jesus is saying to each one of us. DFon't do that. Don't give up. The only thing worse than falling is staying down. Each time he has fallen and gets up again he is encouraging me to do the same. Ask for strength. Call on God as he did. Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say: God does not ask us to be perfect but to be faithfulness. Failfulness consists in not giving up.

And finally I look at the Cross - Today Good Friday Jesus is crucified. He was the one who took on himself the sins of the world. Just imagine. What a weight. The weight of the world. The sins of men. He took these into his own body, walked to Calvary, allowed his body to be nailed to a cross. But what was nailed and murdered was those sins. What was killed on the cross was the sins of the world. He had taken them into his own body. He killed them for once and for all and left them there. While he himself fled the cross and was raised to life and to glory.

Forgiveness is his gift to us if we want it.

This gives me hope - I may be yesterday's sinner - but I am called to be tomorrow's saint.

God never writes anyone off. He doesn't write me off.

So today as I come to kiss the Cross I look at it first and ask - O Lord is my soul worth this much?


© Pat Browne