Friday of the Passion of the Lord

Today 3rd April, Good Friday, Bishop Patrick McKinney celebrated a moving service at Nottingham Cathedral. In a packed Cathedral, he and the priests started the liturgy laying face down on the floor. This posture of silence, sorrow and adoration is a gesture of total surrender before the Cross.

During his homily, he spoke about how in a world of different conflicts and suffering Christ shares our pain but at the same time He offers us hope. Read the full homily below.

Homily of Bishop Patrick for the Good Friday Service

In a world where there is currently so much suffering, warfare, terrorism, famine, natural disasters, as well as human exploitation and sheer neglect, many people wonder how as Christians we can believe in a God of love and mercy, or in the existence of any God at all!  For them, what we gather to do this afternoon, to venerate the Cross of Jesus, seems strange, even repulsive. But not for us, his disciples today.

We venerate in the crucified Jesus, God who does not just offer us sympathy from the safe distance of heaven; but who rather, in his love for all humanity, became a human being who revealed God’s love in his words and actions and, most especially, in his being willing to suffer and die on a Cross so as to  become our  Saviour. This is crucial for us as his disciples today, because if Jesus is just another man, whom human jealousy and injustice combined to destroy, then he is just another innocent victim, one more among the millions of others down through the ages. If, however, his wounds are the wounds of the Son of God himself, as indeed they are, then these wounds can speak to us, in our own woundedness, of a God who suffers with us, who experiences being killed and who also promises us new life.

We venerate the Cross of Jesus, because He who shares in our humanity, our suffering, and death, is indeed the crucified and risen Lord. He is the one who offers hope to all who suffer and who, in their suffering and sin, look upon him. Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, passed through the experience of suffering and death, to risen life and glory, and it is our belief and hope that he will take us all on that journey with him. His wounds, therefore, offer comfort and hope to all who suffer, and pardon and peace to all who have sinned. In the words of Isaiah, in our first reading today, “Ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried…he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed.”  (Isaiah 53: 3-5).

Through his wounds we are indeed healed! When, therefore, we shortly come to venerate the Cross of Jesus, let’s bring to the Cross our own wounds, our sufferings, pain, hurts and disappointments, all that is in need of healing. This Good Friday let’s hold nothing back from our Crucified and Risen Lord: be it the pain of loneliness, an absence of support; the pain of being misunderstood, of rivalry, indifference and pettiness, or of being assailed at times by doubts about ourselves, about God. Let’s not be afraid to acknowledge these experiences at times in our own lives of discipleship.

Let’s also bring to the Cross in prayer today, the grief, suffering and pain of the people of Ukraine, Gaza, Russia, Israel, Iran, the Gulf States, Sudan, Myanmar, and of people in so many other parts of the world who are suffering as a result of warfare and tensions; the many millions of people forced to leave their homes and their country because of warfare and sectarianism, but also because of famine and other natural disasters. The cross is, in many different ways, very much a part of so many people’s lives across our suffering and wounded world.

Let’s venerate the Cross, not just because Jesus knows first-hand there the full horror of human suffering in all its aspects, and so he truly understands us and is indeed our brother when we suffer;  but, most especially, let’s venerate the Cross of Jesus because God the Father has raised him from the dead. The victory over suffering and death is His, and so, as our Saviour, Jesus can say to us today, as he said to his first disciples so long ago, ‘In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.’ (Jn 16: 33). Finally, as we venerate the cross, let’s remember this is where love triumphed, this is where mercy overflowed  and this is where salvation was won. A helpful phrase to carry in our hearts this Good Friday is this, Ave crux, spes unica, ‘Hail to the Cross, our only hope!’

+Patrick

Bishop of Nottingham