Love: the key to Christ's passion and death

After the mystery of love as manifested in the incarnation, yet again we are overwhelmed by the mystery of divine and human love of our brother Christ, as revealed in his passion and death. The longing, the aching of love, is surely the key to the mystery of the passion and all that followed. John especially highlights this point:

Having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

Greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Only the idea of infinite love can reveal the depths of agony implicit in the narrative of the passion which we poor mortals - so limited in love - can never hope to fathom. Christ himself and the apostles stressed so much the theme of love, we too should meditate constantly on this enthralling human love. True love, even among us creatures, must be always suffering, however much at times it can also be the most profound happiness and exhilaration.

The mystery and agony of Christ's love is most beautifully expressed in a meditation of Arch- bishop Goodier SJ:

If Jesus had ever cause to show anger
he had it at the Last Supper.
If ever he had cause to retaliate,
he had it then.
If he could ever have said
that falsehood has gone too far,
that kindness had been too much presumed upon
that his dignity and honour were at stake,
that sin had at last passed its limits,
he might have said it on that night.
Yet on that night:
he washed the feet of Judas,
telling him the while that he knew.
He washed the feet of Peter,
warning him the while of what he would soon do.
He washed the feet of them all
though he knew they would all desert him.
He instituted the Blessed Sacrament
he gave it to all the world
himself the Bread of Life
at that very moment that the world was preparing
to do him to death in shame.

Paul is ecstatic about the love of his crucified Lord and none verbalised it more personally than he when he wrote: 'Christ loved me and died for me'.

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Used with permission from St Paul's Publishing © 1999