“Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mark 15: 37—39).
Some Jewish leaders thought that the true Messiah would be one of earthly conquest in the secular sphere. Jesus did not fulfill their conception though. He came to redeem us all through suffering borne out of love. Even the centurion came to realize Jesus as the Messiah when he “saw how he breathed his last”—how Jesus lay down his life for all of mankind.
From Palm Sunday through Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, we are called to meditate on and be especially attentive and present for the Holy Week’s remembrance of the Passion. This is the apex of our liturgical year as Catholics.
Do we go through life, day to day, avoiding any suffering at all costs? How open are we to the trials God may be sending us? If our attitude is one that any suffering must be avoided, we lose sight of what can redeem us.
The Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross wrote, “And I saw the river over which every soul must pass to reach the Kingdom of Heaven and the name of that river was suffering; and I saw the boat which carries souls across the river, and the name of the boat is love.”
There is no denying when you turn on the news or just simply recollect from your own daily experiences that there is suffering out there. No one goes through life able to avoid it unscathed. The difference among people is how they view the suffering they are dealt. Either they run from the suffering or unite it to Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, thereby allowing themselves to be drawn closer to Christ and transformed.
When I ran track in high school, there was a saying repeated many times by my teammates. It went, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” The sentiment of this motivational quip is that through suffering, one becomes stronger. Spiritually, this holds true as well—when united with Christ.
So as we enter this Holy Week, consider your own attitude toward suffering. If you find that you already seek to unite your daily pains with Christ, stay firm on the path you are on. If you find that you recoil and run from any inconvenience and pain life brings, spend some time before Jesus in the Tabernacle, meditating on the Stations of the Cross, and soon you find yourself agreeing with the centurion, meditating on how Jesus breathed his last.
