| The World Community for Christian Meditation |
| Christian Meditation with Children |
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| TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO BE IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD |
- GOOD FRIDAY
Dearest Friends,
“It was a good crowd today”, one of the Bere islanders was heard to say. We – meditators and
islanders - celebrated the Liturgy of the Passion in the Bere Island Church at 3pm today. More
people come to Good Friday liturgies than Holy Thursday, here as everywhere. The Cross is so
universal an empathy with human suffering. For many it is even enough. Or it seems as if it is
as far as some can go in the exploration of the Mystery of Christ. Certainly it is the place we
start from. And if we are open to the Cross we experience the beginning of a relationship in
faith that will lead us through the limbo of Holy Saturday to the new creation that the
Resurrection is all about.
About two weeks ago three young men were tragically drowned near here, one of them from
the island, Colm Harrington had just celebrated his 21st birthday. Because of the sea such
deaths are not uncommon here and many families have been riven by these personal good
fridays.
Whenever death strikes it is a good friday, a meeting with mortality, an inescapable reminder
of the horizon of our lives. We celebrate the death of Jesus and call this Friday Good because
in it we see a meaning that transforms our sense of the horizon of life and gives us
unexpected grace to deal with the tragedies and limitations of our lives.
Perhaps the key to this meaning, the effective power of the Cross is its manifestation of
powerlessness. Before Pilate, the consummate politician, the spinner of words and worker of
crowds, Jesus stood silent in his own embodying of the truth. He told Pilate he was there to
‘bear witness to the truth’ and then let the silence speak for him.
Hard as it is for us to trust powerlessness the overwhelming energy of Good Friday tells us
this truth. Our reflex is always the opposite, to control, dominate, manipulate. We are
economical with the truth or suppress or package it. To tell the truth is to trust a power that
can only be released in powerlessness, the transcendence of the ego.
All Good Fridays, personal or liturgical, remind us of this. And whether we choose to accept it
or not, we cannot realistically deny it. But in meditation, in saying the mantra, we trust and
embrace this truth and entrust ourselves to it. “Every time we meditate,” as John Main says,
“we enter into the dying and rising of Jesus”.
- Laurence
| Father Laurence´s Special Messages 2008 |