Betrayals can level us. They can shatter images of friendship, ideals, self or the very image we had of God. They evoke heart-wrenching questions and grief. And if they are still unhealed, just thinking of betrayals can cause us to viscerally experience the shattering anew.
The pain of betrayal knocks the wind out of us, and this is more true when we are betrayed by someone we love and who we believed loved us back.
Yet something astounding happens amid this turmoil—our lives continue. Moments pile into a day, days into a week, and our lives continue on. There is a mysterious, unassuming tenacity to hope that lives beneath the rubble. This tenacious hope is Spirit-filled. God has placed this power in the depths of every human heart, and it is tangible in sacred readings today.
The readings call us to unite with the Church to look upon our most cruelly betrayed Lord. They invite us to be aware of the darkness that confronts us both from within and from outside as we too, through sin, cry out, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” (John 19:6)
We encounter the depths of darkness and the unfathomable heights of love in these Good Friday readings. Christ looks into our hearts today—these hearts that are so easily envious and so willing to betray Good—and unafraid of the evil tendencies, He simply and confidently calls us to life by the power of His Cross.
Will we come to Him as He calls? Will we be courageous enough to receive the gifts of humility and hope to approach the One Who held nothing back for the sake of love? Will we lay down our lives with Him to allow Him to be Lord?
If we are willing, the Liturgy today will renew our hope in our redemption, the promise of the One Who is the Love and Light of the World.
Meditate on the Seven Last Words of Jesus from the Cross today.
Sister Maria Kim Bui is a Daughter of Saint Paul, women religious dedicated to evangelization in and through the media. She is originally from Tempe, AZ, spent most of her fourteen years in religious life in the northeast, some time in Texas, and now was recently asked to serve as the director of marketing and sales at the Sisters' publishing house in Boston. Find out more about her here. She is the author of our Blessed Conversations Mystery: Belong found here.
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