00:00:05:25 - 00:00:09:25 Unknown Prayers to Jesus and Mary. 00:00:13:19 - 00:00:39:09 Unknown For most of the time of the liturgical year, the church leaves ample space to the preacher to decide what he should preach on and for how long. He should preach a holy week of the church and its rubrics for the liturgy specifies that the preacher has to be brief and on some days in fact tells the preacher exactly what to speak of. 00:00:39:22 - 00:01:03:21 Unknown Today on this Good Friday, the church doesn't specify the subject. The subject presents itself as rather obvious, but it does tell the priests to be brief. So I try to do that and share just one thought with you that would deserve a lengthier exposition. But nevertheless, I'll present to you just English. I'll present it to you just in short. 00:01:05:08 - 00:01:39:19 Unknown You might be surprised. You might not be surprised. But if we look at our Lord on the cross, if we look at the scene of Calvary, if we look at our Lord giving his life for us, we can. And I suggest we should think and we should remember that it really did not take that much to forgive human sin and to reconcile a man with God. 00:01:41:01 - 00:02:08:18 Unknown This is, of course, not to take away anything from our Lord's Death for us on the cross. Quite the contrary. It's to help us appreciate it all the more. It was a death not out of any necessity, because it really did not take that much at all to forgive human sin, much less would have been sufficient. And yet God did far more than what was strictly necessary. 00:02:10:20 - 00:02:54:08 Unknown Franciscans particularly are staunch in their position, and again, this could be spoken of at length. This theological debate about the exact nature of the redemption and what it took to redeem us. Allow me just to say that Franciscans are staunch in their position that we really attribute too much to man to ourselves. When we say that the redemption somehow will require the incarnation that our sin was somehow so great that God had no choice but to become man and no choice but to ask the life of his son to reconcile us with him that our sin was somehow so great that God couldn't do anything short of that. 00:02:55:08 - 00:03:21:07 Unknown Franciscans are staunch in saying that's not the case. Forgiveness of sin for God is not hard. In fact, sin creates no obligation for God. Sin has no power over God. Sin is utterly useful both to God and to ourselves. Our Lord freely did this much for us, though He did not have to do any of it to redeem us. 00:03:21:29 - 00:03:41:07 Unknown He could have done much less. And it's precisely in the fact that he could have done much less. The Franciscans. You don't have to remember this name, but Blessed John de Scott, who says Our Lord could have delegated Adam himself to be the minister of the redemption. Sin is not hard for God to forgive. Our sin is not infinite. 00:03:43:00 - 00:04:14:11 Unknown Sin is evil. It's horrendous. It's awful. But it's not hard for God to forgive. And it's precisely because it's so easy for God to forgive that the passion and death of our Lord appears as something so great to us that our Lord did much more than what was required, infinitely more than what was required precisely to make us feel indebted to him all the more he sent not a servant, but his son. 00:04:14:12 - 00:04:23:17 Unknown He could have sent a servant. He did. And he sent a son to do the work that a servant could have done. 00:04:27:14 - 00:04:59:17 Unknown The concrete takeaway is that it's not hard for God to forgive our sin after all. Sin is what? It's nothing. We attribute much too much to ourselves. When we create a picture of of sin as as almost a contending reality with God, something that God has to struggle against. We struggle against sin because we become attached to nothing and we become deceived very easily and think sin is something, whereas it's nothing. 00:04:59:18 - 00:05:16:19 Unknown It's the absence of God. It's the absence of good. And we become deceived thinking that there is something there where there is nothing. And it's not difficult for God to fill nothing with Himself. He can do that very easily. 00:05:20:27 - 00:05:55:15 Unknown So today, when we look at the crucifixion on this Good Friday, we prepare ourselves to adore the cross with which and on which our Lord redeemed us. I suggest the following that on the one hand, we be grateful to God for having forgiven our sin in such a super, abundantly generous way, and keep our eyes focused on the super abundant generosity of God so as to be confident that it is not hard for Him to redeem us, to sanctify us, to free us. 00:05:56:24 - 00:06:32:10 Unknown We should not see the death of our Lord as what it is sometimes presented to be an exhibition of the extravagant demands God makes to repair for sin. Sin is the crucifixion is not that. It's not an exhibition of our Lord's extravagant demand or God's extravagant demands to make reparation for sin. Rather, what is it? It's an exhibition of God's super abundant mercy and gives us far more than what is required, far more than what is necessary, far more than what is deserved. 00:06:33:29 - 00:07:01:14 Unknown He did not do this because he needed to. Because he wanted to. Not because sin is hard to forgive, but because God is generous and forgiving it. And with his help at the intersection of our Lady who takes us to the foot of the cross, we can overcome our sins. It's not a difficult thing if only we allow God to be God in our lives. 00:07:02:14 - 00:07:12:04 Unknown We trust Him. Allow him. Do not resist and let him love us with his super abundant love and mercy. 00:07:15:28 - 00:07:46:20 Unknown This point, the honeymoon is over. The liturgy continues now. And on Good Friday. It's unique, as you have already noticed at this point. After the harmony, we go into the intercessions precisely because of the super abundant redemption that we receive in Christ. The church prays for for the world and for its needs, for people that we know, for people that we don't know. 00:07:47:01 - 00:08:44:27 Unknown There's ten lengthy intercessions that the church makes to God precisely on this day in which grace is so abundant. Let's keep that in mind as we transition from this portion of the liturgy to the next to the intercessions. And I invite all of you to prayerfully enter into them and to pray with confidence to our good God.