A group of youngsters was practicing to become altar servers. One of the girls grew pensive as she looked at a large crucifix on the wall of the sanctuary.
“It must have really hurt Jesus, you know, how He died on the Cross.”
A boy, always happy and smiling, assumed a serious expression for a moment. “That was sad,” he replied.
The others agreed with hushed voices. The children’s remarks were so spontaneous and simple; you could tell they felt Jesus’ pain. Genuine emotion had entered into their child-like expressions of faith.
Catholicism is an incarnational faith because the central mystery of Christianity is the Incarnation, the dogma that God took on human flesh and was born in time in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. So our expression of faith is appropriately incarnational.
We put flesh on the bones of our Catholic faith. Thus, in the liturgy, we assume different postures: standing, sitting and kneeling. We perform various gestures: genuflecting, making the Sign of the Cross and bowing. We speak and we sing. The priest and deacon wear vestments of different colors. Sacred vessels and books are used for the liturgy. Our churches are adorned with statues and stained-glass windows. Incarnational means we pray with our whole body.
Faith, then, is a matter of both head and heart. It seems, however, in recent years, a considerable amount of heart has been lost in the expression of our Catholic faith. To be human means to be emotional, too, and some of that needs to enter into our expression of the faith. Meditating on certain prayers and hymns can help us do exactly that.
The “Stabat Mater” is ideal to accomplish that goal during Holy Week. Composed in the 13th century in the Franciscan tradition, it is one of the greatest Latin hymns ever composed. In the traditional Way of the Cross composed by Saint Alphonsus Liguori, a verse of the hymn is sung before each station. So it begins: “At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to Jesus to the last.”
In the “Stabat Mater,” we unite our heart with the heart of Mary, the Sorrowful Mother who shared so intimately in the Passion and Death of her son. Speaking of the relationship between Jesus and Mary on Calvary, Saint Alphonsus said, “Two hung upon one cross.” So we pray addressing the Blessed Mother as she stood at the Cross: “Make me feel as thou hast felt, make my soul to glow and melt, with the love of Christ my Lord.”
Considering our crucified Lord, it has been said the worst pain He suffered was not from nails pounded into his hands and feet, not from sharp thorns dug deep into his skull, and not from the shouts and curses of a bloodthirsty mob. Rather, the worst pain of the Crucifixion was loneliness, the sense of utter abandonment by God and man.
Jesus cried out from the Cross, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?”
Certainly, the Sorrowful Mother at the foot of the Cross shared acutely in her son’s sense of abandonment: “Through her heart his sorrow sharing, all his bitter anguish bearing, now at length the sword hath passed.” Mary really felt her son’s pain.
Pope Francis was known to express his feelings in public. He kissed babies and hugged the poor and infirm. He laughed with them and cried with them. He extolled the gift of tears, which is the grace to be able to unite our hearts so closely with others that we can weep with them and for them. The Holy Father said, “The gift of tears prepares us to see Jesus.”
Considering the Sorrowful Mother, we ask: “Is there one who would not weep, whelmed in miseries so deep, Christ’s dear Mother to behold?”
Thus, Pope Francis challenged us to come face to face with human misery so that we can fully appreciate the pain of Jesus’ Crucifixion, the result of sin. It is not so easy to do.
This Holy Week, our hearts are united in prayer and heartfelt sympathy with the people of the Middle East and Ukraine caught up in the middle of war. We lament the persecution of Christians in Nigeria and elsewhere. Our hearts are broken when we see innocent people mistakenly or wrongly detained by ICE. So we pray with dear Mary at the foot of the Cross: “Let me share with thee his pain, who for all my sins was slain, who for me in torment died.”
However, in the face of such cruelties and injustice, we remain hopeful that all will eventually be made well. That is the attitude we must unfailingly cultivate as followers of Jesus, for we know that Easter Sunday surely follows on the heels of Good Friday.
“Christ, when thou shalt call me hence, be thy Mother my defense, be thy cross my victory.”
Father Edward Kolla is a retired priest of the Diocese.
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