THE PERSON
ON THE OTHER CROSS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Person on The Other Cross.”

KEVIN O’NEIL, REDEMPTORIST

On Tuesday, last week, March 31st, 2009, Father Kevin O’Neil, a Redemptorist from Washington D.C., gave us a very reflective presentation on “The Seven Last Words of Christ.” *

We sat here at St. John Neumann Church and looked up at this powerful crucifix of Jesus – bigger than life – overhanging us here in this church. When we walked into the church that evening the lights were low and a projector flashed – power pointed - The Seven Last Words of Jesus over and over and over again – onto the wall around the crucifix - giving us a preview of the evening.

As you know the 7 Last Words of Jesus are 7 sentences – 7 statements – 7 messages of Jesus on the cross:

· “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
· “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
· “Woman, here is your son. Here is your mother.”
· “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
· “I am thirsty."
· “It is finished."
· “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Then as he gave a reflection on each of the 7 Last Words of Jesus only that statement was projected on the wall – on either side of Jesus. I was thinking this is probably the best church in the world for such a presentation. It was a powerful presentation if it got us out of ourselves and into the suffering and death of Jesus Christ – and not me thinking of technology.

THE READINGS AND THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS

Hearing one of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Songs, today’s first reading, hearing today’s second reading from Hebrews that we have a great high priest who cried great prayers and supplications as he was dying on the Cross, hearing the Gospel Passion story from John – like we did just now – making the Stations of the Cross – which many did today and during Lent, has the same purpose, to get us out of ourselves and into the mystery of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.

GETTING OUT OF OURSELVES

What gets us out of ourselves?

Often it’s when the other is suffering.

Last night as I was sitting down there in those side seats for the Holy Thursday Evening Mass – which has the foot washing – the scripture readings of the Passover Meal, the giving of the Eucharist, I couldn’t help but notice the empty cross. Nobody was on it. It's the cross that will be used in procession this evening and we will all come up the aisle to venerate it.

Last night as I looked at the empty cross, I began to ask: “Who’s on that cross?”

Last night I began to think: “I can project images of people onto that empty cross.”

Who’s there?

Who’s hurting?

Who gets me out of myself?

It’s a basic human experience that we’ve all said many, many times, “I thought I had it bad, till I met this person who ….”

Who’s on that cross?

I see those who will be experiencing an Easter for the first time without a loved one who has died.

I see those who have a loved one in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I see those whose marriage is falling apart.

I see those who feel mistaken, misunderstood, misjudged.

I see those out of work – and the bills are piling up – and they have to tell the kids.

I see those with cancer.

I see my brother Billy - this was years ago - being told he had to take his hat off when we went into a restaurant in Baltimore – and I was furious – but he took it off – his head without hair and with cuts – the last stages of his brain cancer – but praise God his sense of taste and his appetite came back that February. He died a month later.

I see a kid on our block when I was a kid. He was very effeminate and we picked on him – having no clue about such things – and when he came out of the closet years later – he came out with a vengeance – but it gave me a life time understanding of people who are homosexual – and I was able to say on weekend retreats when people started gay bashing in Question and Answer sessions. “Does anyone realize that someone in this room might be gay or someone in this room might have a son or daughter who is gay – and it has been a long, long struggle for understanding and compassion?” And sometimes some people heard.

I see Sister Helen Prejean who in 1984 walked with a man named Patrick Sonnier to his electrocution for murdering with his brother a young man David LeBlanc – an only son. The letters, attacks, insults, she received were countless. She writes, “I reached out to victims’ families – even if they scorned me, rejected me, hurled insults at me. My suffering was nothing, piddling nothing, next to their great sorrow in the violent, tearing, irrevocable loss of their loved one.” She said what helped her was meeting with the father of David LeBlanc. She writes, “We prayed together, Lloyd and I, and soon I was seated at his kitchen table, eating with the family, they forgiving my terrible mistake, taking me in like a lost daughter." She continues, “As I write this, my heart still resonates with gratitude. Lloyd was my first teacher. Through him I got a peek into the chasm of suffering that families endure, who wake up one morning and everything is alive and humming and normal and by evening face the unalterable fact of the death of a loved one.” **

CONCLUSION

Mary lost her only son that afternoon – capital punishment. What did she go through this Friday evening?

We come to these services to get out of ourselves – so we can enter into not only Christ, but also the lives of those around us – and when we can – be there for them – willing to listen – willing to learn – willing to admit we don’t know, but we do care.

We come to these services to walk out of here – better than when we walked in here – better than how we were when Lent started this year – and year after year we grow – and hopefully, when we are on that other cross, there will be folks under us – and the words between us will be forgiveness, compassion, thirst, hope, acceptance of endings, understanding, letting go – and when that happens, it will be a Good Friday, or Good Monday or Good Thursday or whatever day it is.



* Kevin O'Neil, C.Ss.R, The Seven Last Words of Christ, Liguori Publications, Liguori, MO., 2007

**Cf. "Ride the Current," Listening to God's Call by Helen Prejean, C.S.J., America Magazine, April 13, 2009, 100th Anniversary Edition, pp. 36-37