Good Friday Homily - April 2, 2021

 

Good Friday Homily

April 2, 2021

A Gift of Self

 

            In April of last year, ninety-year-old Suzanne Hoylaerts came down with Covid. As her breathing became more difficult and she began to fail, doctors told her that they planned to put her on a ventilator. Much to their surprise, she responded, “No, I don’t want that – save it for a younger patient. I’ve lived a good life.” Two days later, she died – but not before saving the life of another patient who received the ventilator that she refused.

            John Paul II defines love as “self-gift”. What greater gift can we make of ourselves than giving up the most precious thing we own, our own life? But if we are giving a gift, we don’t want to waste it – all the more when we are giving the gift of our own life. We want to find a cause worthy of our self-gift.

            Imagine that you were given ten thousand dollars, with the stipulation that you cannot keep it but you must give it away. Who would you give it to? The first person who asks? The person who might waste it on drugs or alcohol? No, we would want to give it to someone who would invest it and use it wisely – someone who would be worthy of such a gift.

            I think of the great example of St. Edmund Campion. As a young boy, Edmund was chosen to give a speech in front of the Queen of England. He so impressed the queen and her court that one of the nobles decided to give a full scholarship to young Edmund so he could attend Oxford University. Edmund did not waste such a generous gift, but became a great scholar and eventually a martyr and saint in England.

            So if we have a gift to give away, we want to make sure the recipient is worthy of it.

            But here is where such logic gets turned on its head: Jesus Christ gave His life for us while we were still unworthy. He knew that His self-gift upon the Cross would be rejected. It would be spurned. It would be wasted. But His love moved Him to give it all, anyway. And it was His love that has made us worthy of such an awesome gift.

            His amazing love on the Cross shows us both who we are, and who we should be. Who we are – because we are so profoundly, personally, passionately loved by God. Sometimes we think we are failures, junk, that our lives are just “an accident.” But He wouldn’t die for “junk”; He wouldn’t sacrifice everything if we were unredeemable. His love on the Cross shows us what we are: precious in His sight, made worthy by His Blood.

            But the Cross also shows us who we should be. When God looks at us, He knows that we are sinners but He also knows we have the potential to be saints! And to be a saint is to follow His example of self-gift: laying down our lives for Jesus Christ and for others out of love.

            Love is self-gift. Jesus Christ showed us the greatest act of love by giving all of Himself on the Cross. He now calls us to do the same.