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| Good Friday -2014. |
When the Lord Jesus Christ saved me from the pits of hell, I knew the rest of my life would be totally different, but I really didn’t know where to go or what to do. After I was fit enough to travel, I did make my first trip to Confession in well over a decade. But, afterwards, I longed for more; to be closer yet to God. Through the darkened shadows of my past, I recalled visiting a little monastery near my home town. It was somewhat secluded, quiet, and peaceful. Desperate, I decided to return there. When I got to the place, I noticed a series of outdoor stone plaques that led up the road to a chapel. Each plaque was an image from The Stations of the Cross. From my childhood in Catholic schools, I had a very vague recollection of attending a Way of the Cross prayer service during Lent. Throughout those strange little half-hours, I never felt close to Christ. The lessons on each Station were all about kindness, sharing, and general schoolyard deportment. They switched the focus - from the suffering of Jesus to us. What He did, those so many years ago, seemed distant and irrelevant. At its worst, His death felt trivial. As if He died simply for effect; to merely prove some minor social point. Did He actually die for me? So that I may live?
Later, somewhere and somehow, I found a small “The Way of the Cross” book by St. Alphonsus Liguori. I had never seen anything like it before. With this, I thought, I would make sense of Jesus’ death and what it all meant. With great anticipation, I took the tiny book and headed back to the monastery. Like a child just learning to walk, I followed along with the readings, meditations, and prayers, and scampered from each image of Christ’s Passion to the next. At first, I didn’t really know what I was doing and it didn’t make much sense. Then, as I tried to concentrate on the words I was saying, I realized that I was being led along the actual path to Calvary. My aspirations, disappointments, and sufferings were being linked with Christ. I knew that He was truly dying for me, because of my sins. He wasn’t teaching some trite lesson about fellowship or manners, but actually shedding real blood so that we may someday join Him in heaven. A great stillness washed over me, and I knew that all which had come before was over. That a future without depravity was possible. And, over the next few years, I would return to that happy place over and over again. “Grant that I may love You always; and then do with me what You will.”