Good Friday reminds us that the ultimate experience of the divine is found in love. This is all symbolized in the terrible act of the man who thrust a lance into Jesus’ heart. In that act we see the awful reality of our personal sins, and the sins of which we tend to wash our hands, but for which we are responsible. Whenever we sin against the truth, whenever we betray or abuse love, we thrust the lance again into the heart of Jesus.
That lance revealed what is in God’s heart. Water and blood issued forth. Water that cleanses, purifies, and refreshes; and blood that offers us communion in God’s life. The water of baptism and the blood of the Eucharist.
Watching the pierced heart of Jesus on Calvary, that is what we experience. There we see that God is love. Nothing we do can change that, not even our terrible sins. The veil that obscured our vision of God was, we are told, torn asunder. At last we are able to see who God really is, revealed in the prayerful, forgiving, life-‐giving, love-‐giving heart of Jesus.
Jesus’ first disciples realised that Jesus’ gift of himself from the cross had two implications for their lives. The first was their need to come together on the first day of every week (the day of the Resurrection) to support each other in their faith and to receive Jesus into their hearts in communion. We continue this practice in the regular Sunday Mass to which all are welcome.
The second was a commitment to love each other and to love the world the way Jesus loves. In 1900, in his book on the Sacred Heart, Father Jules Chevalier, the founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, wrote: ‘From the heart of Jesus pierced on Calvary, I see a new world coming forth: a great and life-‐giving world, inspired by love and mercy; a world which the Church must perpetuate on the whole earth’.
And now, let us go in spirit to the hill of Calvary, and join with all our brothers and sisters throughout the Christian world. Let us pray that all hearts will be open to the grace that is continually being poured out over our suffering world from the heart of God.