9 12, July, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au Two of the resurrected Stations of the cross, above, hanging in St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney PHOTO: SUPPLIED So, too, we have great confidence that in our world’s present troubles, and those that are more lasting in our lives, death is not the last word. ” Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP the Crucified One on Good Friday. As we offer material, emotional and spiritual sup- port to others at this time, we lighten their load. We become for themwhat the nascent Church was even for Jesus: a solicitous mother Mary, a face-wiping nurse Veronica, a burden-bearing stranger Si- mon, bedside companions to the sick and dying, like Mary and John, the holy women and the centurion. Innocent yet self-sacrificed In the painted stations of St Mary’s Cathedral the Lord is robed in the red of kings, blood, the Passion. It is not the scarlet of sin (Isa 1:18), and when He is stripped we find He wears snow-white beneath. “The sinless one was made sin for us”, made a scapegoat, a sin-offering, though no sinner Himself. Caiaphas, the High Priest, says pragmatically that he’d willingly sacrifice an inno- cent man for the people’s sake: unwittingly he’s right both as to Jesus’ innocence and His salvific sacrifice. The crowd outside bay for Jesus’ blood. Though Jesus is “the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth”, the judge stares at Him and asks cynically, “Truth – what’s that?” Though Jesus is inno- cence itself, no threat, no case against Him, as Pilate acknowledges, still the judge washes his hands of Him as if to say “Justice – what’s that?” and sends Him to His fate. Here is a society and le- gal systemwith little care for questions of innocence or guilt, punishment or desert, or for principles of presumed in- nocence or proof beyond rea- sonable doubt. It’s a culture of indignation and shaming, and so Jesus is displayed at trial as if on TV for the audience’s tit- illation, vilified in the media of crowd whispers, dragged through the streets for pub- lic mockery, stripped of robes and titles, freedom and dignity (1st-10th). Sad to say, innocent peo- ple can still be convicted and punished today, both in the ‘justice’ system and the court of public opinion. Before we point fingers at God for allow- ing bad things to happen to good people, we might first ask whether we are just in all our own dealings and what in- justices our community toler- ates or perpetrates. If we horde when others have greater need, or seek to make ourselves the exception to every restriction, or simply go with the crowd vilifying an innocent man, or push people of doubtful health or immigra- tion status out to sea, we have become the mad mob and the unjust judge. But when we see the sick or dying, the isolated or anxious fromCOVID19 and respond with the generosity of our health professionals, pas- tors and civic officials, we are Veronica wiping the Lord’s fe- vered brow, Simon of Cyrene helping carry His cross, Mary and John keeping watch by the Cross, Christ sacrificing Himself. Mistreated but forgiving Unjustly condemned, Jesus did not consign Caiaphas and Pilate to hell as well He might; “harshly dealt with, he never opened his mouth”. Meeting the wailing women of Jerusa- lem (8th) He doesn’t wallow in self-pity: instead, He tells them not to worry about Him but rather to worry about what their city and society had be- come and where they were going. Collapsing repeatedly, stripped and nailed (3rd, 7th, 9th-11th), we don’t find Him swearing like someone with road-rage or messaging hatred like I find all too often posted by people on my own Face- book page and many others. Hanging on the cross and struggling to breathe, dying like a COVID19 patient of fever and asphyxiation, Jesus cried out that He thirsted. He was given bitter gall to drink with the vinegar, but there was no bitterness in Him. Even from the Cross, His last words were full of mercy and affection: I forgive them – forgive them Father; Boy, here’s your new Mother; Sinner, join me today in Paradise; Father-God receive my spirit. The via crucis of our lives can be difficult to walk, for we too will know times when we feel isolated, reject- ed, mistreated, anguished, exhausted with the present or anxious for the future. We, too, will no doubt fall many times, and more often morally than physically, and so more disas- trously for our character and relationships. But as we committed our Lord’s body to the dust in our last station today, we did so knowing that He is the Lord of the earth, who made us from the earth, and who will rise again from the grave. So, too, we have great confi- dence that in our world’s pres- ent troubles, and those that are more lasting in our lives, death is not the last word. Af- ter a short ‘sleep’ the Lord wakes. After the dirt and damaged of 130 years, our painted sta- tions at St Mary’s have been resurrected by David Stein and team. After being sullied and broken in other ways, our Church is being renewed. After being broken by forc- es of nature and human frail- ty, our community recovers. Three days. Ours is but a short sleep, in the sure and certain hope, that together with Christ and all who have died in Him, we will rise again. This is the edited text of the Ferverino by Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP, Ferveri- no for Good Friday Stations of the Cross, delivered at St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, on 10 April 2020. Contact us for more information on how you can watch EWTN EWTN is a non-pro fi t organization supported entirely by donations Email: asiapaci f i
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