Some Good Friday Thoughts...

The story of the suffering and death of Jesus and the religious

services that go with Good Friday are perceived, by the majority of people in Ireland today, far removed from everyday life. This year, for the first time ever I think, I have been quite removed from the liturgical mayhem involved in celebrating the most important feasts of the Church’s year. This is due to an accident I had a few weeks back which has left me incapacitated for the next few weeks. So, while sitting at home all day instead of the usual marathon session in the parish, I have been asking myself what these three days mean to the rest of the world. You could say, I’ve been having a ‘what’s it all about Ted’ sort of day. Apparently we now live in ‘secular’ Ireland; rescued and saved from the mad Christians. Social media feeds today declared all those still participating in the ‘mad rituals’ ‘out of touch’ but comforted the population by assuring them that we [the mad Christians] would soon be extinct.

I thought I’d read the newspaper to get away from Facebook but Atheist Ireland are mightily peed off in there due to the pubs being closed; this is a terrible "affront to non-believers”. And while they probably have a point where the pubs are concerned, I could not help thinking that a national day of non-drinking probably would not do us any harm; A national ‘non-commercial day’ even or a ‘publican’s day off’. “The Good Friday ban is just one annual note in the constant background noise of religious interference in our public life” (Irish Indo).

In an effort to salvage some sort of prayer during the day, I tuned into Pray as you Go. The words ‘I thirst’ jumped out at me.

I was thrown back to Malawi, where I visited in January, and I recalled the amazing and wonderful people I met in a tiny village in the Dedza region. They thirst every day. The water they use to quench their thirst makes them sick. They walk hours every day to get that water.

Their children are constantly ill and missing school days frequently. In the next 6 years rain-fed agriculture in that region will drop by 50% due to climate change. HIV/AIDS cause further problems and heartache for many in this village.

During the day I was also drawn back to the article about the ‘Homeless Jesus’ statue. This statue, sculpted by Timothy Schmalz to bring attention to the chronic problem of homelessness in Toronto, depicts a homeless person on a bench, covered in a blanket. However, on closer inspection there is a noticeable characteristic: the person bears the wounds of crucifixion on his feet. This is Jesus, the homeless wandering preacher, asleep on a bench outside your house, outside your church.

St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto were initially enthusiastic in having the sculpture outside their doors but after some reflection decided against it. Parishioners found it ‘offensive’; how could someone do this to their image of God? It was too ‘provocative’ and ‘not an appropriate image’. But it is real. What on earth are they talking about?

People are crucified in this world every day. Jesus shows us from the cross that suffering is very real: while we tend to focus in on the physical suffering, there was intense emotional suffering also. One wouldn’t blame Jesus if he was relieved that this public ministry episode was coming to an end. After all, it had been an epic failure up until this point and he was betrayed and let down by his closest friends in the end. How many of us have not suffered this disappointment or heartache of any kind?

Good Friday is not the end of the story. Nor is it some archaic set of rituals that have nothing to say to the world today. We can participate in services of all kinds today (some will be better than others) but we are constantly being called to the Good News, the HOPELANDIC news. (Like those who hope that the pubs open tomorrow and have a promise that they will). For Christians around the world a celebration is coming and it has a lot to tell us about our lives and the world that we live in. All things are possible.

I think about that small village in Malawi and I know that there is hope.

This is the bore well that was installed by Trocaire which is providing water to hundreds of people; clean water; water that has not made anyone sick in months; that has kept a lot of children sick free and in school. That well was made possible through the people who donate to Trocaire each year. As Mandy Meade notes: ‘Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world’.

I was also thinking about the irrigation system in a village we visited one day in Malawi. Installed through Trocaire’s partners in Malawi this irrigation system has turned one community from ‘I THIRST’ into a community with two harvests a year. Water flows

from the mountains three kilometres away into 28 plots of land bringing crops, feeding a fish farm, and saving the people from the annual ‘hungry season’. We see the crucifixion story in the famine and drought; but we are also called to see something greater; to be something bigger; to cause TRANSFORMATION.

The ‘Homeless Jesus’ statue also has found a home; a place where Christians are not afraid to look homeless Jesus in the eye and say – ‘this oppression; this homelessness: “It is finished”. The sculptor has even been commissioned by many parishes in the USA to bring ‘Homeless Jesus’ to their doorsteps.

These three days of the Easter Triduum are the stories of all our lives, whether we want to engage with it or not. They show the world the reality of suffering but also shine a beacon towards hope, resurrection, transformation, and change of the most unimaginable kind.

Come Forth Lazarus (5th Sunday of Lent 2014)

Jesus is being called back to Bethany into a situation of death. We can think of all of those places in the world which Bethany could represent for us today: Malawi, Syria, Afghanistan, or situations of conflict in our own communities. The tomb and the bandages can represent all of those things which prevent us from being free; which cause situations of despair. We can place ourselves in various positions within this text: the disciples who don’t want to go there; Mary and Martha who are crying out to Jesus; Lazarus who has been placed in darkness, bound and restrained.

Jesus returns to the place of conflict and confronts a culture of death. He orders that Lazarus be unbound, that Lazarus come out of the darkness of the tomb and into the light.

This Lent we are asked to focus particularly on the Global Water Crisis as part of Trocaire's Lenten campaign. We too are sometimes like Lazarus in the tomb when we assume that we can do nothing about a particular situation such as this; it seems too big; too impossible to solve. We can dismiss our own light and remain in the darkness.

However, today's Gospel is a story of liberation. When we feel helpless where situations of injustice are concerned, we must remember that we are full of light; we are being called out of a culture of death; we are powerful beyond measure. Never forget that. We can do small things; we can help to remove the restraints of injustice instead of sitting in the darkness. We can lobby our government on the Climate Change Act; we can be more aware of how we use the earths resources; we can tell the stories of those suffering from drought in Malawi - there is so much we can do.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us”. Jesus is calling us out into the light in today’s Gospel. Come forth, Lazarus.

For more information on what we can do in relation to the Global Water Crisis please take a look at Trocaire's website and the "IT'S UP TO US" PAGE: www.trocaire.com/uptous