If life’s race ended here below, we would have every reason to despair at the thought of the millions, if not billions, of human beings who start off at a great disadvantage, nailed to the starting line by poverty and underdevelopment, without even a chance to run in the race. But that is not how it is. Death not only cancels out differences, but overturns them. “The poor man died and was carried away by the angels into Abraham’s embrace. The rich man also died and was buried ”¦ in Hades” (cf. Luke 16:22-23). We cannot apply this scheme of things to the social sphere in a simplistic way, but it is there to warn us that faith in the resurrection lets no-one go on living their own quiet life. It reminds us that the saying “live and let live” must never turn into “live and let die.”
The response of the cross is not for us Christians alone, but for everyone, because the Son of God died for all. There is in the mystery of redemption an objective and a subjective aspect. There is the fact in itself, and then awareness of the fact and our faith-response to it. The first extends beyond the second. “The Holy Spirit,” says a text of Vatican II, “offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery.”
One of the ways of being associated with the paschal mystery is precisely through suffering: “To suffer,” wrote John Paul II in the days following the attempt on his life and the long convalescence that ensued, “means to become particularly susceptible, particularly open to the working of the salvific powers of God, offered to humanity in Christ.” Suffering — all suffering, but especially that of the innocent and of the martyrs — brings us into contact with the cross of Christ, in a mysterious way “known only to God.”
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Father Cantalamessa's Good Friday Homily 2011
If life’s race ended here below, we would have every reason to despair at the thought of the millions, if not billions, of human beings who start off at a great disadvantage, nailed to the starting line by poverty and underdevelopment, without even a chance to run in the race. But that is not how it is. Death not only cancels out differences, but overturns them. “The poor man died and was carried away by the angels into Abraham’s embrace. The rich man also died and was buried ”¦ in Hades” (cf. Luke 16:22-23). We cannot apply this scheme of things to the social sphere in a simplistic way, but it is there to warn us that faith in the resurrection lets no-one go on living their own quiet life. It reminds us that the saying “live and let live” must never turn into “live and let die.”
The response of the cross is not for us Christians alone, but for everyone, because the Son of God died for all. There is in the mystery of redemption an objective and a subjective aspect. There is the fact in itself, and then awareness of the fact and our faith-response to it. The first extends beyond the second. “The Holy Spirit,” says a text of Vatican II, “offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery.”
One of the ways of being associated with the paschal mystery is precisely through suffering: “To suffer,” wrote John Paul II in the days following the attempt on his life and the long convalescence that ensued, “means to become particularly susceptible, particularly open to the working of the salvific powers of God, offered to humanity in Christ.” Suffering — all suffering, but especially that of the innocent and of the martyrs — brings us into contact with the cross of Christ, in a mysterious way “known only to God.”
Read it all.