March 29, 2013: Pope Francis celebrated Our Lord’s Passion at the high altar of St
Peter’s basilica on Good Friday evening. At sunset, the Pontiff wearing red vestments,
arrived in silent procession and prostrated before the altar in prayer. This was the
opening act of the liturgy of Our Lord’s Passion, the central commemoration of Good
Friday, the memorial of Christ’s suffering and death for the salvation of mankind. Pope
Francis stood as three deacons, two Franciscans and a Dominican, chanted the account
of the Passion according to St. John. As per the tradition, the papal preacher, Capuchin
Father Raniero Cantalamessa, delivered the Good Friday Sermon. It was titled "Justified
as a Gift through Faith in the Blood of Christ". Below is the
official text of the 2013 Good Friday Sermon: “All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God, but they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement
by his blood, effective through faith in his blood. He did this to show his righteousness
[...] to prove at the present time that he is righteous and that he justifies the
one who has faith in Jesus”(Rom 3:23-26). We have reached the summit of the Year
of Faith and its decisive moment. This is the faith that saves, "faith that overcomes
the world" (1 Jn 5:5)! Faith – the appropriation by which we make ours the salvation
worked by Christ, by which we put on the mantle of his righteousness. On the one hand
there is the outstretched hand of God offering man His grace; on the other hand, the
hand of man reaching out to receive it through faith. The "new and everlasting Covenant"
is sealed with a handclasp between God and man. We have the opportunity to make,
on this day, the most important decision of our lives, one that opens wide before
us the doors of eternity: to believe! To believe that "Jesus died for our sins and
rose again for our justification" (Rom 4:25)! In an Easter homily of the 4th century,
the bishop pronounced these extraordinarily modern, and one could say existentialist,
words: “For every man, the beginning of life is when Christ was immolated for him.
However, Christ is immolated for him at the moment he recognizes the grace and becomes
conscious of the life procured for him by that immolation” (The Paschal Homily of
the Year 387 : SCh, 36 p. 59f.). What an extraordinary thing! This Good Friday
celebrated in the Year of Faith and in the presence of the new successor of Peter,
could be, if we wish, the principle of a new kind of existence. Bishop Hilary of Poitiers,
converted to Christianity as an adult, looking back on his past life, said, "before
meeting you, I did not exist". What is required is only that we do not hide from the
presence of God, as Adam and Eve did after their sin, that we recognize our need to
be justified; that we cannot justify ourselves. The publican of the parable came to
the temple and made a short prayer: "O God, have mercy on me a sinner". And Jesus
says that the man returned to his home "justified", that is, made right before him,
forgiven, made a new creature, I think singing joyfully in his heart (Lk 18:14). What
had he done that was so extraordinary? Nothing, he had put himself in the truth before
God, and it is the only thing that God needs in order to act. * * * Like he
who, in climbing a mountain wall, having overcome a dangerous step, stops for a moment
to catch his breath and admire the new landscape that has opened up before him, so
does the Apostle Paul at the beginning of Chapter 5 of the letter to the Romans, after
having proclaimed justification by faith: “Therefore, since we are justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have
obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing
the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing
that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character
produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5: 1-5). Today,
from artificial satellites infrared photographs of whole regions of the Earth and
of the whole planet are taken. How different the landscape looks when seen from up
there, in the light of those rays, compared to what we see in natural light and from
down here! I remember one of the first satellite pictures published in the world;
it reproduced the entire Sinai Peninsula. The colors were different, the reliefs and
depressions were more noticeable. It is a symbol. Even human life, seen in the infrared
rays of faith, from atop Calvary, looks different from what you see "with the naked
eye". "The same fate”, said the wise man of the Old Testament, “comes to all, to
the righteous and to the wicked...I saw under the sun that in the place of justice,
wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well"(Ecc
3:16; 9:2). And in fact at all times man has witnessed iniquity triumphant and innocence
humiliated. But so that people do not believe that there is something fixed and sure
in the world, behold, Bossuet notes, sometimes you see the opposite, namely, innocence
on the throne and lawlessness on the scaffold. But what did Qoheleth conclude from
all this? " I said in my heart: God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there
is a time for everything" (Ecc 3:17). He found the vantage point that puts the soul
in peace. that Qoheleth could not know and that we do know is that this judgement
has already happened: "Now”, Jesus says when beginning his passion, “is the judgment
of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted
up from the earth, will draw all people to myself"(Jn 12:31-32). In Christ dead
and risen, the world has reached its final destination. Human progress is advancing
today at a dizzying pace and humanity sees new and unexpected horizons unfolding before
it, the result of its discoveries. Still, it can be said that the end of time has
already come, because in Christ, who ascended to the right hand of the Father, humanity
has reached its ultimate goal. The new heavens and new Earth have already begun. Despite
all the misery, injustice, the monstrosities present on Earth, he has already inaugurated
the final order in the world. What we see with our own eyes may suggest otherwise,
but in reality evil and death have been defeated forever. Their sources are dry; the
reality is that Jesus is the Lord of the world. Evil has been radically defeated by
redemption which he operated. The new world has already begun. One thing above
all appears different, seen with the eyes of faith: death! Christ entered death as
we enter a dark prison; but he came out of it from the opposite wall. He did not return
from whence he came, as Lazarus did who returned to life to die again. He has opened
a breach towards life that no one can ever close, and through which everyone can follow
him. Death is no longer a wall against which every human hope is shattered; it has
become a bridge to eternity. A "bridge of sighs", perhaps because no one likes to
die, but a bridge, no longer a bottomless pit that swallows everything. "Love is strong
as death", says the song of songs (Sgs 8:6). In Christ it was stronger than death! In
his "Ecclesiastical History of the English People", the Venerable Bede tells how the
Christian faith made its entrance into the North of England. When the missionaries
from Rome arrived in Northumberland, the local King summoned a Council of dignitaries
to decide whether to allow them, or not, to spread the new message. Some of those
present were in favor, others against. It was winter and outside there was a blizzard,
but the room was lit and warm. At one point a bird came from a hole in the wall, fluttered
a bit, frightened, in the hall, and then disappeared through a hole in the opposite
wall. Then one of those present rose and said: "Sire, our life in this world resembles
that bird. We come we know not from where, for a while we enjoy the light and warmth
of this world and then we disappear back into the darkness, without knowing where
we are going. If these men are capable of revealing to us something of the mystery
of our lives, we must listen to them". The Christian faith could return on our continent
and in the secularized world for the same reason it made its entrance: as the only
message, that is, which has a sure answer to the great questions of life and death. *
* * The cross separates unbelievers from believers, because for the ones it is
scandal and madness, for the others is God's power and wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 1:23-24);
but in a deeper sense it unites all men, believers and unbelievers. "Jesus had to
die [...] not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of
God"(cf. Jn 11:51f). The new heavens and the new Earth belong to everyone and are
for everyone, because Christ died for everyone. The urgency that comes from all this
is that of evangelizing: "The love of Christ urges us, at the thought that one has
died for all" (2 Cor 5:14). It urges us to evangelize! Let us announce to the world
the good news that "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because
the law of the spirit which gives life in Christ Jesus has delivered us from the law
of sin and death" (Rom 8:1-2). There is a short story by Franz Kafka that is a
powerful religious symbol and takes on a new meaning, almost prophetic, when heard
on Good Friday. It's titled "An Imperial Message". It speaks of a king who, on his
deathbed, calls to his side a subject and whispers a message into his ear. So important
is that message that he makes the subject repeat it, in turn, into his hear. Then,
with a nod, he sends off the messenger, who sets out on his way. But let us hear directly
from the author the continuation of this story, characterized by the dreamlike and
almost nightmarish tone typical of this writer: " Now pushing with his right arm,
now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters
resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters. But the
multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields
how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of
his fists on your door. But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still
he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will
he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he
must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would
be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second
outer palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through
the outermost gate—but never, never can that happen—the imperial capital would lie
before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment. Nobody
could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. But you sit
at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself”. From his deathbed,
Christ also confided to his Church a message: "Go throughout the whole world, preach
the good news to all creation" (MK 16:15). There are still many men who stand at the
window and dream, without knowing it, of a message like his. John, whom we have just
heard, says that the soldier pierced the side of Christ on the cross "so that the
Scripture may be fulfilled which says 'they shall look on him whom they have pierced"(Jn
19:37). In the Apocalypse he adds: "Behold, he is coming on the clouds, and every
eye will see him; they will see him even those who pierced him, and all the tribes
of the Earth will lament for him "(Rev 1:7). This prophecy does not annouce the
last coming of Christ, when it will no longer be the time of conversion, but of judgment.
It describes the reality of the evangelization of the peoples. In it, a mysterious
but real coming of the Lord occurs, which brings salvation to them. Theirs won't be
a cry of despair, but of repentance and of consolation. This is the meaning of that
prophetic passage of Scripture that John sees realized in the piercing of the side
of Christ, and that is, the passage of Zechariah 12:10: "I will pour out on the House
of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and consolation;
they will look to me, to him whom they have pierced". The evangelization has a
mystical origin; it is a gift that comes from the cross of Christ, from that open
side, from that blood and from that water. The love of Christ, like that of the Trinity
of which it is the historical manifestation, is "diffusivum sui", it tends to expand
and reach all creatures, "especially those most needy of thy mercy." Christian evangelization
is not a conquest, not propaganda; it is the gift of God to the world in his Son Jesus.
It is to give the Head the joy of feeling life flow from his heart towards his body,
to the point of vivivfying its most distant limbs. We must do everything possible
so that the Church may never look like that complicated and cluttered castle described
by Kafka, and the message may come out of it as free and joyous as when the messenger
began his run. We know what the impediments are that can restrain the messenger: dividing
walls, starting with those that separate the various Christian churches from one another,
the excess of bureaucracy, the residue of past ceremonials, laws and disputes, now
only debris. In Revelation, Jesus says that He stands at the door and knocks (Rev
3:20). Sometimes, as noted by our Pope Francis, he does not knock to enter, but knocks
from within to go out. To reach out to the "existential suburbs of sin, suffering,
injustice, religious ignorance and indifference, and of all forms of misery." As
happens with certain old buildings. Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the
moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time
comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs,
but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return
the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission
that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano:
"Go, Francis, and repair my Church". "Who could ever be up to this task?" wondered
aghast the Apostle before the superhuman task of being in the world "the fragrance
of Christ"; and here is his reply, that still applies today: "We're not ourselves
able to think something as if it came from us; our ability comes from God. He has
made us to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; because
the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life"(2 Cor 2:16; 3:5-6). May the Holy Spirit,
in this moment in which a new time is opening for the Church, full of hope, reawaken
in men who are at the window the expectancy of the message, and in the messengers
the will to make it reach them, even at the cost of their life.