Homily for GOOD FRIDAY by Fr. Stan Gumula
10 April 2020
Esmeraldas, Ecuador
What sadness we feel at the death of Jesus. As we enter into this via dolorosa we cannot help but experience the finality of the death of Jesus. As so many are experiencing the finality of the parting caused by the coronavirus without the chance to properly wake and bury their loved ones.
But there is a different level to Jesus’ death. Our hymn speaks of it as the Hour, the Hour of the New Covenant. Let us listen:
Esta es la hora de la nueva alianza,
plenitud de amor, es la hora de Jesús.
Del antiguo Israel a la tierra prometida,
un pueblo nuevo nace a la Luz.
Cruz de luz, Cruz de amor, fuego y resplandor.
Jesus’ death is his Hour, the time for which he so longed, which he desired with all the energy of his being. It is the time of the fullness of love, when Jesus’ life is poured out for each one of us. There is no greater love than this to lay down one’s life for others. And this death thus becomes the beginning of a new people. A new birth is taking place even as Jesus is dying on the Cross. He gives this new people born from his side to the care of the Woman who brought him into the light, Mary, mother of the Church.
Soon we will come to kiss the feet of Jesus on the Cross and to give him all our love, our devotion, our tears. There are few things more moving in all the church year than this simple, yet solemn, ceremony. It was at this point in the liturgy that Sister Clare Crockett was overwhelmed by the love of Jesus and the cost of her sins and her sinful ways. She experienced deeply that Jesus did this for her. She could not stop weeping as she returned to her pew. It was the beginning of her conversion and her vocation to follow Jesus with every fiber of her being. It enkindled the fire and the radiance of her own love in response to burning fire of Jesus‘ total self-gift, fuego y resplandor.
Each one of us has responded to this love and that is why we are here. You are holy, Sisters. Let us commit ourselves once again to the Lord Jesus and beg that we, too, may share in the plenitude of his love.
Cruz de luz, Cruz de amor, fuego y resplandor.