Summary
In the life of the Church this is the week of suffering and death followed by Resurrection! From the temple Jesus challenged the Pharisee to ‘destroy this temple and he would restore it in three days’. Without even recognizing the meaning of the challenge they did destroy and He did restore. We are commemorating the process of that act of destruction and restoration. They were playing with the life of a living human being. And now we realize that we were not too far from them, and we still are not too far from their act of destruction.
Our faith teaches us that it was not the rulers in Jerusalem who killed Jesus; it was our sin, and so we were partners with them! That act of killing is not over. Whenever humans are tortured, persecuted and killed, Jesus is being killed because it was from humanity that Jesus took his flesh and made humanity his Body. This process goes on all over the world. In the commemoration of the suffering and death of Jesus, we also join our suffering and death whereby we make them meaningful and rewarding.
Suffering and dying are necessary for the sprouting of new life. Death through suffering is a natural process. We must facilitate this natural process, but not tamper with it. The zealots of our time who advocate a culture of death do not realize it. Hence they try to legalize killing human beings, which has been a criminal offence with extreme punishments all over the world for all time in history. Killing the unborn human beings is already legal. The killers fail to realize that there is a law that surpasses all the so called democratic and legal decisions. They think that they can flout the law of God with immunity if a few create an opinion, brand it as the wish of the society, and pass it through legislation and court proceedings.
Millions of unborn children are being killed in countries which do not have enough children to fill their schools, enough workers in their job markets and the number of elders to be supported by the working population is increasing disproportionately. Now a legal system is on its way where children, sick people and elders could be legally killed. By this we are preparing humanity to extinction, which is not God’s work but human making.
In the agony of Gethsemane Jesus might have been agonized also because of this. This is not strictly a full reflection on the Passion of Jesus. However, I feel this passion week is a good time to reflect on how we are going to act, react on these issues and decide on the course of at least our own life, if not of all humans. This reflection and decision should be done at the right time, before it is too late and before others get a chance to decide on our life.
Fr. George