By Fr Eusebio Fernandes, Apostolic Administrator to The Diocese of Belgaum –
This year, on 19th April, Christians celebrate Good Friday. It is a day set apart to thank God for his limitless love for humankind.
Jesus while talking to a Jew named Nicodemus, said, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life” [Jn. 3:16].
Jesus started his ministry by preaching to the people that God is their loving Father, that he loves one and all unconditionally and that all of us are brothers and sisters. Jesus did not make any distinction between the rich and the poor, righteous and sinners. This message was not accepted by the leaders of the Jews. They could not accept the life style of Jesus, taking the side of public sinners and the marginalized. Jesus preached a Gospel that completely transcended the law as they knew it. Hence they sought an occasion to do away with him.
Jesus had always in mind the mission that his Father had entrusted him – the founding of a new society where everyone accepts God as a loving Father and one another as brothers and sisters. He had the mission of initiating a revolution of love. He said, “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!!” [Lk.12:49-50]. Because Jesus wanted by all means to go ahead with this movement of love he was falsely accused and condemned to death, death on a cross.
But by dying on the Cross he accomplished the mission entrusted to him by the Father. The message from the Cross as he breathed his last, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Let us all be instruments of peace and forgiveness and spread the message of love and tenderness which flows from the Crucified Saviour Jesus Christ.