This homily was given by Msgr. Vladimir Felzmann for the Deaf Community celebration of the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion. Find out more about Holy Week services for the Deaf Community here.
‘Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?’ (John 18:11)
In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught his apostles, the third petition is ‘may your will be done.’ On Good Friday, Jesus was going to do just that. He would drink the cup, and take on the whole agony, as that was what his Father asked him to do.
Throughout his Passion, Jesus showed how awesome was his courage, patience, generosity and moral strength. It made him – for me at least – immensely admirable and lovable.
Whenever I pray the Our Father, I focus on the final phrase, ‘deliver us from evil.’ As with old age I have become more of a coward, I pray that the pain and agony of evil experiences will not come my way.
So far, the cup of my life has not been too harsh. All too many of my friends have not been so lucky; so blessed .
Perhaps tomorrow – the quiet Easter Saturday – you could read the Passion and imagine being there, in the skin of Jesus. If you have seen, or want to see, the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ (co-written, co-produced, and directed by Mel Gibson), you will get some idea of the horrors of that day and the final hours of Jesus before he died.
Padre Pio, a Capuchin friar, so identified with his beloved Jesus that he received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ’s Crucifixion, which appeared on his hands, feet and side in 1918 and remained until his death in 1968.
He was in excellent company: St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226), St. Catherine of Siena (d. 1380), St. Rita of Cascia (d. 1457) and St. Faustina Kowalska (d. 1938) also bore the stigmata. If you have time, it is worth reading their biographies.
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Image: Fr Lawrence Lew OP
