Good Friday

My Good Friday Homily.  Like Palm Sunday, I tried to keep it simple while giving time for personal reflection.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041814.cfm

          Last Sunday, I asked you to take something with you from the reading of the Passion so that you could reflect on it throughout Holy Week.  I encourage you to continue doing that. 

          Today we hear from the Passion according to St. John, which is the most unique of the four Gospels.  This Passion account also contains themes and sayings that we hear nowhere else.   A part that always gets my attention is when Jesus and Pilate have a philosophical discussion on the meaning of truth.  “Jesus answered, ‘You say I am a king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’  Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’” 

This truth that Jesus is talking about is absolute truth.  The idea of an absolute truth that is true for everyone can seem very strange and foreign to a society like our own that is becoming increasingly relativistic.  “Well, that might be true for you, but not for me.  That’s what you believe, but not me.”  This truth is about the love that God has for us; a love so great that He gave up His only begotten Son that we might be saved.   May we be able to express our belief in this truth as we observe this day of our Salvation.