Good Friday, April 14:
"From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "This man is calling for Elijah." At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son!"" Matthew 27: 45-54
Lectio: Read this scripture passage aloud, slowly. Release any interpretation or opinion you may have about this passage, as you read it.
Meditatio: Let the passage "sink in" for two minutes. Sit with the passage. Hold it lightly - don't force any attempt to interpret it.
Repeat "lectio" and "meditatio" three more times.
Oratio: Pray aloud: "May I receive from the scripture what my soul needs for today."
Contemplatio:
Use the cross as the focus for mindful prayer. It is a compass - north, south, west, east - converging at a point. Through the center point of the cross, take aim at how you want to be, where you want to go. It aims at divine consciousness. It aims at kindness. It aim at compassion. It aims at knowing the Knower.
In Numbers 21:9, Moses lifted up a bronze serpent on a pole in order for the people of Israel to gaze on it and be cured of snake bites. Jesus said in John 3: 14: "And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up..." The snake on the pole, reminiscent of the caduceus, the snakes on the pole that are an ancient symbol of medicine, was a form of homeopathy, an ancient form of medicine that exists today in the example of vaccination. Homeopathy is the idea that a dose of that which ails you is the cure. A dose of the snake through a confrontation with its image was the cure for the bite of the snake in the biblical legend. Likewise, Jesus suggested that a dose of evil and death, delivered by gazing at the cross, was the cure for the human condition of suffering. Healing and reconciliation begin with honest, direct mindfulness of pain and its sources. But so much of the time, we avoid paying real attention to this pain. Instead, we buy into the culture around us, which tells us that pain is to be avoided, masked, drugged, denied. We buy into the culture around us that tells us that life is about bigger and better things - the upward trail of material progress. Meanwhile, the cross tells us something completely different: that human life is about loving each other through the inevitable suffering that is our human condition.
Gaze at the cross, and focus on its center, the place of the heart of the suffering Christ. Notice your own sufferings as well as the sufferings of others around you and of people in the wider world. Name them: pain, unfulfilled desire, existential emptiness, frustrated ambition, anger, resentment, fear, oppression, poverty, pestilence, war - as you gaze squarely at the intersecting point of the cross. This is your reality, and the reality of the human race of which you are a part. This is the reality of the crucified Christ. You are not alone. Jesus suffered with you. The Christ, which is the human encounter with God, is fully and compassionately present in every pang of misery that you and other human beings experience.
When you are fully conscious of the true extent of your suffering and that of others, pull back your gaze and notice the cross as a whole. Its arms point out in the four directions. There is life on the other side of suffering and even death. This, too, is the human condition: to go through suffering, and to find an eternal kind of life beyond it, in this life.
