We have just heard the Passion according to St. John and there really is little that can be added to what the Gospel has set before our eyes and our hearts.
Today, perhaps, we can contemplate the Lord hanging on the cross just after his death, suspended between heaven and earth. The soldier has pierced his side and blood and water flow from his heart. From that Heart full of love, his spouse, the Church, is born, and the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist which wash us and give us eternal life come to be.
The Heart of Jesus is the best refuge, the only refuge, to which we can go in times of greatest need. The Lord has emptied himself, has spilled the last drop of his blood and, in that surrender, has redeemed us. Everything in his Passion has been the work of an immense love: the love of a human heart, the love of the human Heart of God.
Christ loved the Father to the end. He gave himself on the cross for love of Him, to rescue his brothers and sisters with his death and thus return to God those of us who had rebelled and been lost to sin.
Jesus also loved men and it is this love that has led him to the Cross, which became the tree of life because the Author of grace laid himself on it to save us. In this Heart, pierced by a spear, the very intimacy of God has been opened to us. But today, that Heart full of love has stopped beating. It has stopped because we have taken his life. “They tore him from the land of the living, because of the sins of my people they wounded him. They buried him with the criminals; because he died with the wicked, although he had not committed crimes, nor was there deception in his mouth. ”
Today we come to you, Heart of Jesus, to thank you and to ask you for the gift of redemption. We seek shelter in you to find mercy and grace, as the second reading told us. Yes, give us the gift of your Holy Spirit and let us die with you. May the water from your side cleanse us and your blood revive us. You are our only hope, you and the motherly mediation of Mary. We turn our gaze to her because after the death of her Son on the cross all the hope of the Church is lodged in the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin.
Mary, give us to drink from that hope. In the most difficult circumstances, when nothing seems to make sense, in these darkest days when we don't even hear the heartbeat of Jesus, help us to wait with you. Christ's death is the life of our souls. From this strange Easter on, may nothing ever be the same. May we be children who, dying with the Lord, also rise to a new life. Amen.
