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Friday, April 19, 2019
A few years ago, my spiritual director, a Benedictine Abbot, was named the Titular Abbot of Tewksbury Cathedral/Abbey in England. Tewksbury Cathedral is an Anglican Cathedral now, having been annexed by Henry VIII into what would become the Anglican Church of England. Being named Titular Abbot was a great honor for my spiritual director, and along with it he got to travel to England to be received with much honor and not a small measure of joy at what once was a thriving Benedictine Abbey. While he was there, he attended daily morning Mass in a church that had a large wooden crucifix complete with Jesus’ corpus that was in the back of the church. Over the course of several days as he was leaving after the Mass, he had to pass by this large Cross on which Jesus hung with his arms outstretched. For several mornings in a row, he had to pass by a man who was standing before the Cross with his arms outstretched looking up at the crucified face of Jesus. The man would keep his arms outstretched for as long as he could, but eventually they would fall at his side from exhaustion. He would rest a moment and then raise his arms up and stretch them out again keeping his arms as straight as possible until exhaustion again set in. On one particular morning, Father Abbot watched the man raise and stretch out his arms and struggle to keep them raised. Repeatedly, the man would raise his arms, the exhaustion would come and his arms would fall, only to be raised and outstretched again. The man’s efforts made him sweat profusely. Finally one morning Father Abbot got his courage up, and during one of the man’s pauses, he asked the man what he was doing. The man told him that the British Army had sent both his sons to Iraq, and that one after the other, they had died in combat. He said he was very mad at his government for sending both his sons over to Iraq, but he hated the people who murdered his sons. As tears welled in his eyes, he explained that after a morning Mass several weeks before, it came to him that God the Father had, just like him, watched his only begotten Son be murdered on the Cross. And in a mystical way God the Father’s arms were outstretched along with His Son’s on the cross, but in losing His Son God’s only response has been love. And so, the man explained, he determined to stand in front of the Cross with his arms outstretched in imitation of Jesus’ position on the cross, and he resolved to do this until God the Father took away the hatred he felt in his heart and replaced it with love.
On this day, over 2000 years ago, Jesus was nailed with his arms outstretched to the cross. We believe in One God, as we intone in our Creed every Sunday. And our One God is a God of Three Divine Persons. So, in a mystical way when we nailed Jesus to the Cross, we also nailed God the Father and the Holy Spirit to the Cross with Him. Today find a crucifix and stand in front of it with outstretched arms. Keep them stretched out until they fall at your side in exhaustion. Do this until sweat breaks out on your brow. In this you will feel a small measure of what Jesus must have felt, nailed to the Cross. As you stretch your arms out, lift up your greatest sin and give it to God as you experience a small measure of the suffering Jesus must have endured on the Cross. Ask God to take away whatever sin you offer up.
Lenten Action
If you are a regular practitioner of contemplative prayer, enter into your normal contemplative prayer practice focusing on the love of God for you borne out by the fact of His willingness to die for you. If you are new to meditation and contemplative prayer do the same.
Today is a Fast day if you are physically able. Everyone should abstain from eating meat and limit the amount of food one eats. Remember not to watch TV, use computers or your phones to access computer games or unnecessary apps. Please avoid using social media.