Vatican City, Apr 10, 2020 / 11:23 am (CNA).- Here is the full text of the Good Friday homily of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., delivered April 10 at St. Peter’s Basilica.
“I have plans for your welfare and not for woe”
St. Gregory the Great said that Scripture “grows with its readers”, cum legentibus crescit. [1] It reveals meanings always new according to the questions people have in their hearts as they read it. And this year we read the account of the Passion with a question—rather with a cry—in our hearts that is rising up over the whole earth. We need to seek the answer that the word of God gives it.
The Gospel reading we have just listened to is the account of the objectively greatest evil committed on earth. We can look at it from two different angles: either from the front or from the back, that is, either from its causes or from its effects. If we stop at the historical causes of Christ’s death, we get confused and everyone will be tempted to say, as Pilate did, “I am innocent of this man’s blood” (Mt 27:24). The cross is better understood by its effects than by its causes. And what were the effects of Christ’s death? Being justified through faith in him, being reconciled and at peace with God, and being filled with the hope of eternal life! (see Rom 53:1-5).
But there is one effect that the current situation can help us to grasp in particular. The cross of Christ has changed the meaning of pain and human suffering—of every kind of suffering, physical and moral. It is no longer punishment, a curse. It was redeemed at its root when the Son of God took it upon himself. What is the surest proof that the drink someone offers you is not poisoned? It is if that person drinks from the same cup before you do. This is what God has done: on the cross he drank, in front of the whole world, the cup of pain down to its dregs. This is how he showed us it is not poisoned, but that there is a pearl at the bottom of this chalice.
And not only the pain of those who have faith, but of every human pain. He died for all human beings: “And when I am lifted up from the earth,” he said, “I will draw everyone to myself” (Jn 12:32).
Everyone, not just some! St. John Paul II wrote from his hospital bed after his attempted assassination, “To suffer means to become particularly susceptible, particularly open to the working of the salvific powers of God, offered to humanity in Christ.”[2] Thanks to the cross of Christ, suffering has also become in its own way a kind of “universal sacrament of salvation” for the human race.
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What light does all of this shed on the dramatic situation that the world is going through now? Here too we need to look at the effects more than at the causes—not just the negative ones we hear about every day in heart-wrenching reports but also the positive ones that only a more careful observation can help us grasp.
The pandemic of Coronavirus has abruptly roused us from the greatest danger individuals and humanity have always been susceptible to: the delusion of omnipotence. A Jewish rabbi has written that we have the opportunity to celebrate a very special paschal exodus this year, that “from the exile of consciousness” [3]. It took merely the smallest and most formless element of nature, a virus, to remind us that we are mortal, that military power and technology are not sufficient to save us. As a psalm says, “In his prime, man does not understand. / He is like the beasts—they perish” (Ps 49:21). How true that is!
While he was painting frescoes in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the artist James Thornhill became so excited at a certain point about his fresco that he stepped back to see it better and was unaware he was about to fall over the edge of the scaffolding. A horrified assistant understood that crying out to him would have only hastened the disaster. Without thinking twice, he dipped a brush in paint and hurled it at the middle of the fresco. The master, appalled, sprang forward. His work was damaged, but he was saved.
God does this with us sometimes: he disrupts our projects and our calm to save us from the abyss we don’t see. But we need to be careful not to be deceived. God is not the one who hurled the brush at the sparkling fresco of our technological society. God is our ally, not the ally of the virus! He himself says in the Bible, “I have . . . plans for your welfare and not for woe” (Jer 29:11). If these scourges were punishments of God, it would not be explained why they strike equally good and bad, and why the poor usually bring the worst consequences of them. Are they more sinners than others?
No! The one who cried one day for Lazarus’ death cries today for the scourge that has fallen on humanity. Yes, God “suffers”, like every father and like every mother. When we will find out this one day, we will be ashamed of all the accusations we made against him in life. God participates in our pain to overcome it. “Being supremely good” – wrote St. Augustine – “God would not allow any evil in his works, unless in his omnipotence and goodness, he is able to bring forth good out of evil.”[4]
Did God the Father possibly desire the death of his Son in order to draw good out of it? No, he simply permitted human freedom to take its course, making it serve, however, his own purposes and not those of human beings. This is also the case for natural disasters like earthquakes and plagues. He does not bring them about. He has given nature a kind of freedom as well, qualitatively different of course than that of human beings, but still a form of freedom—freedom to evolve according to its own laws of development. He did not create a world as a programmed clock whose movements could all be anticipated. It is what some call “chance” but the Bible calls instead “the wisdom of God.”
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The other positive fruit of the present health crisis is the feeling of solidarity. When, in human memory, have the people of all nations ever felt themselves so united, so equal, so less in conflict than at this moment of pain? Never so much as now have we experienced the truth of the words of a great Italian poet: “Peace, you peoples! Too deep is the mystery of the prostrate earth.”[5] We have forgotten about building walls. The virus knows no borders. In an instant it has broken down all the barriers and distinctions of race, nation, religion, wealth, and power. We should not revert to that prior time when this moment has passed. As the Holy Father has exhorted us, we should not waste this opportunity. Let us not allow so much pain, so many deaths, and so much heroic engagement on the part of health workers to have been in vain. Returning to the way things were is the “recession” of which we should have the most fear.
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” (Is 2:4)
This is the moment to put into practice something of the prophecy of Isaiah whose fulfillment humanity has long been waiting for. Let us say “Enough!” to the tragic race toward arms. Say it with all your might, you young people, because it is above all your destiny that is at stake. Let us devote the unlimited resources committed to weapons to the goals that we now realize are most necessary and urgent: health, hygiene, food, the poverty fight, stewardship of creation. Let us leave to the next generation a world poorer in goods and money, if need be, but richer in its humanity.
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The word of God tells us the first thing we should do at times like these is to cry out to God. He himself is the one who puts on people’s lips the words to cry out to him, at times harsh words and almost of accusation: “Awake! Why do you sleep, O Lord? / Rise up! Do not reject us forever! . . . Rise up, help us! / Redeem us in your mercy” (Ps 44, 24, 27). “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mk 4:38).
Does God perhaps like to be petitioned so that he can grant his benefits? Can our prayer perhaps make God change his plans? No, but there are things, St. Matthew explains, that God has decided to grant us as the fruit both of his grace and of our prayer, almost as though sharing with his creatures the credit for the benefit received.[6] God is the one who prompts us to do it: “Seek and you will find,” Jesus said; “knock and the door will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7).
When the Israelites were bitten by poisonous serpents in the desert, God commanded Moses to lift up a serpent of bronze on a pole, and whoever looked at it would not die. Jesus appropriated this symbol to himself when he told Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:14-15). We too at this moment have been bitten by an invisible, poisonous “serpent.” Let us gaze upon the one who was “lifted up” for us on the cross. Let us adore him on behalf of ourselves and of the whole human race. The one who looks on him with faith does not die. And if that person dies, it will be to enter eternal life.
“After three days I will rise”, Jesus had foretold (cf. Mt 9:31). We too, after these days that we hope will be short, shall rise and come out of the tombs our homes have become. Not however to return to the former life like Lazarus, but to a new life, like Jesus. A more fraternal, more human, more Christian life!
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Footnotes:
[1] Moralia in Job, XX, 1. [2] John Paul II, Salvifici doloris [On the Meaning of Human Suffering], n. 23. [3] https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/coronavirus-a-spiritual-message-from-brooklyn (Yaakov Yitzhak Biderman). [4] See St. Augustine, Enchiridion 11, 3; PL 40, 236. [5] Giovanni Pascoli, “I due fanciulli” [“The Two Children”]. [6] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologicae, II-IIae, q. 83, a. 2
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Francis says: “It will do us good to ask ourselves if we are still living in the period in which we need the Law, or if instead we are well aware that we have received the grace of having become children of God so as to live in love,” he said.
JESUS SAID: “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:9-10)
JESUS ALSO SAID: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)
So yes, we are aware. Jesus commanded we obey the commandments as the method through which we give and receive God’s love and grace.
“But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men.’ (Acts 5:29).
And Jesus warned, in the form of a command: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.” (Matthew 7:15)
And then, other than the Fourth Gospel, there are the letters of John:
“And by this we can be sure we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says that he knows him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him. But he who keeps his word, in him the love of God is truly perfected; and by this we know that we are in him” (1 John 2:3-5).
What is there about “thou shalt not have strange gods before me” that leaves a niche inside St. Peter’s Basilica for Pachamama and the synodal antics in Germania; or about “thou shalt not commit adultery” that offers wiggle room, so to speak? But who are we to judge?
“Do I disregard the Commandments? No. I observe them, but not as absolutes, because I know that what justifies me is Jesus Christ.”
And, therefore, we never mention Veritatis Splendor which holds that “…the commandment of love of God and neighbor does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, BUT (Caps added) it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken” (n. 52).
And lest moral ambiguity itself be made into an absolute (!), this: “The relationship between faith and morality shines forth with all its brilliance in the UNCONDITIONAL RESPECT DUE TO THE INSISTENT DEMANDS OF THE PERSONAL DIGNITY OF EVERY MAN (italics), demand protected by those moral norms which prohibit WITHOUT EXCEPTION (Caps added) actions which are intrinsically evil” (n. 90).
So much for the new pseudo-absolutes: the Fundamental Option, “proportionalism,” and “consequentialism” (nn. 65 and 75).
His Holiness is on a mission to reinterpret the Apostle Paul as the epistles of Martin Luther. Paul made it clear Christ perfects the Law since it is in Christ and love for him that we can live the Commandments [Rules] in spirit and in truth. If you love me, keep my commandments (JN14:15). A fundamental truth that we are justified by Christ alone was misinterpreted by Luther with omission of works, whereas Christ, Paul, the Apostles demanded repentance. The marketing of His Holiness’ doctrine to the world is as most know mercy sans strict adherence to rules with the deceptive argument of Luther’s doctrine of justification. In principle[only] it is true since it is Our Lord who first provides prevenient grace. A premise Luther cites as election. Nonetheless, we do respond to grace in time although in the order of nature God first provides grace. What is omitted is free will, a reality that troubled Luther. Therefore, predestination. We are free to reject that grace as Saint Thomas Aquinas pointedly asserts. Otherwise without consent there would be no true repentance, simply facsimile. Jesus’ Gospel as Bishop Barron faithfully markets is instead the Word on Fire.
Noticing another card on the table, we see that Predestination is not only key to Lutheranism but is also a central tenet of Islam. As a mindset, we are broadly alerted to the similar DNA for early Protestantism and for much-earlier and more distant Islam:
“There is something decidedly Islamic in original Protestantism, with its idea of an all-controlling hidden God and His infallible Prophet, its secularization of marriage, its Puritanism and messianism. Even today some of the survivals of original (i.e., pre-liberal) Protestantism in remote parts of Scandinavia, Holland, Scotland and the United States have, at least culturally, more affinity with the Wahhabis than with Catholics from which they stem. It must be borne in mind that not so much the authoritarian organization but the liberal theology [e.g., free will versus Predestination of the elect] of Catholicism was the target of the reformers” (Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, “Liberty or Equality,” 1952).
A complication to keep in mind—-grace without moral absolutes—-as Church voices propose mutual understanding now at the cross-cultural (no longer inter-religious) level, under the Abu Dhabi Declaration of 2019….
“The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed [!] by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings,” states the bundled document (versus an only “permitted” pluralism of religion).
Interesting nexus between Protestant reform and Islam. Abu Dhabi credo pluralism and diversity of sex seems inserted under camouflage of religions, race, language. There’s an affinity in Abu Dhabi with Fratelli Tutti. About the distancing from free will by the Reformers beginning I suppose with Luther, at least markedly is the satisfying sense of being saved whatever. And with that an icy Kantian coldness [Kant despised sentiment, music comparing the latter with flatulence] seen in rejection of a Loving Blessed Mother given us by her Son from the Cross. Certainly not however for Protestants I’ve known who in our day became more religiously eclectic. Now with Francis there’s emphasis on sentiment, perhaps, not anomalously couched in harshness toward the very human aesthetic of tradition, and his frequent striking derogation of Mary.
Silly me. I always thought the multiple moral laws that require defending life from harm had a self-evident connection to love. Where did my parents go wrong in raising me? Where did my teacher of moral theology who taught in more fomal terms what my parents taught me go wrong?
Just as I was getting very depressed at witnessing Francis express another point of Lutheran ignorance in not distinguishing between ancient ritual law and divinely endowed innate natural law that Our Lord revealed in all its beauty, at the Sermon on the Mount, that is a healing salve for the world as a field hospital for which Francis claims to care but gives many indicators to the contrary, I watched EWTN’s World Over rebroadcast of an interview of Father Richard Neuhaus from 2002, being prophetic about the integration of moral doctrine, the truth about love, and the crisis in the Church. Watch it. It will remain on YouTube for a long time. (08-26-21 broadcast)
46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood outside, asking to speak to him. 48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?” 49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brethren! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50)
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11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; 15 and if any one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15)
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According to these passages we need to give a response to God’s love and His call. The way some people use God’s unconditional love and justification through Jesus Christ appears to suggest once saved always saved. For all practical purposes hasn’t a stiff-necked, hard-hearted, impenitent sinner filed for divorce from God? Reconciliation with God requires sinners who are willing to repent of their own free will.