The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
Today, on Good Friday, the Church venerates the Cross. The Roman Missal (the prayers and instruction for the liturgy) actually calls it Adoration of the Cross. The priest chants, “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.” And the faithful respond, “Come, let us adore.”
The Cross is the very place that our salvation was won, where God perfectly shows his love. The Cross is soaked with the very blood of God incarnate, the blood he gave for each of us. This is the Cross we adore. But we cannot only behold the Cross in reverence for Jesus’ great act. We must behold the Cross in our own lives.
I often reflect on the incredible toll that Jesus’ passion and death had on Mary. At the Annunciation, Mary gives complete abandonment to the will of God with her perfect fiat: “Be it done unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Mary is favored by God, and with that favor, she is asked to carry the Body of our Lord within her.
When Mary accepts the Body of Christ in her womb, she was not only accepting Jesus’ body, but she was accepting each and every member of the Body of Christ – the Mystical Body of Christ for the rest of eternity. Mary accompanies each of us in our sufferings and our burdens. Since Jesus told John, “Behold your mother,” Mary has been accompanying each member of the Body of Christ as we behold our crosses.
Oftentimes, in my own life, I can be tempted to expect some rest after carrying a particularly heavy cross. But in today’s Gospel, we see that just before dying on the Cross, Jesus gives his mother, who has been carrying such a tremendous burden, to John; he gives his mother to his entire Mystical Body, where she remains today. This is how our Lord works, and it is precisely why He asks us on this Good Friday to behold the wood of the Cross.
Christopher Meyer is a seminarian studying for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. He likes sports, and he loves Jesus and the Church. For a strange combination of sports and theology, you can find him on Twitter.