Friday
of the 6th Week of Easter
May 30, 2014 8:30am
We have all experienced “Good
Fridays” in our lives.
I do not mean the literal day
after Holy Thursday that we call Good Friday.
I mean that we have all
experienced sufferings and dyings.
Jesus doesn’t sugar coat that
reality for us.
He doesn’t say that he will spare
us from these “Good Fridays.”
In fact, maybe the clearest
teaching in the entire gospel story is that every experience of Easter in our
lives requires a Good Friday.
The birth of a child requires the
discomfort of childbearing and the pain of childbirth.
The diploma received at
graduation requires hard work over some years in school.
Success in business requires
steady, creative, risk-taking efforts.
The celebration of a marriage
anniversary requires the giving of self day by day and year by year.
Every new experience of joy and
fulfillment requires that we undergo some kind of change that can often be
difficult and traumatic.
In some of his final words to his
disciples, Jesus reminds us that when we act in the love and compassion of God,
then God will transform our grief into joy, our division into reconciliation,
our despair into hope.
Jesus calls us to embrace an
attitude of resurrection.
He calls us to see the hope and
possibilities that come from embracing the challenges and sacrifice demanded by
the cross.
