Deacon Jim Pauwels of St. Edna Parish in Arlington Heights, Illinois, passed along his homily for Good Friday:<\/p>\n
\n\u2026 And so, the Son of God died. Knowing everything that was going to happen to him, he chose to die. This man Jesus, who need never have died, this man indeed who need never have lived on earth as we live, chose to live, and chose to die.<\/p>\n
In John\u2019s account of the Passion which we just heard, at least six different times we\u2019re told that all these things were said or done in order to fulfill what had already been prepared. All of this, everything, was foreordained. All that we just heard was to fulfill what Scripture had already told us would happen, or that Jesus himself had already told us would happen. What was just proclaimed here didn\u2019t come about by chance. The groundwork for tonight was laid beforehand: it was laid earlier in Jesus life; it was laid by the prophets, centuries earlier; it was laid eons before, when the world was created; it was laid outside the confines of time and space. Jesus already knew everything that was going to happen to him. What he said, and did, was to fulfill a plan. The words and deeds that were just proclaimed to us, all went according to plan.<\/p>\n
This master plan, this marvelous plan whose working-out startled nations and struck kings speechless, this plan included the milestone that Jesus, the Son of God, was going to die. And the reason he chose to die<\/span>, was so that we might live<\/span>. Jesus died so that we might have life.<\/p>\nGod died for us<\/span> \u2013 that was the plan. Everything that happened beforehand laid the groundwork that led up to that grand, terrible, unexpected, undeserved, unfathomable act of love. God the Son was born as a human being, and lived among us, and worked mighty deeds and revealed many things about God to us, so that God could die \u2013 for us. The whole reason, the point of the whole plan, was for our sakes.<\/p>\nGod died so that we could live. That was the way that God chose for us to be able to live. We couldn\u2019t live \u2013 we can\u2019t live \u2013 by ourselves. By ourselves, all we can do is be born, and sin, and die. We can\u2019t save ourselves.\u00a0 If we will live \u2013 and we will<\/span> live – it is because, and only because, God died for us.<\/p>\nTonight we find ourselves immersed in these two mysteries. The first mystery is that Jesus, who had no need of his own to come among us, nevertheless came among us, in order to die for us. And the second mystery is that we – we who don\u2019t want to die and who live most of our lives as though we will never die, and yet we will surely die; but \u2026 because God the Son died for our sake, beyond death we will live. God died so that we might live. That\u2019s God\u2019s plan for us. And Jesus, the Son of God, loved us so much, still loves us so much, that he fulfilled the plan, even unto death.\u00a0 Because he loved us. Because he still loves us. What love that is!\u00a0 In the face of such love, upon receiving that much and that kind of love, what left is there to say, except, thank you?<\/p>\n
In a few moments, we\u2019ll kneel before the cross. If I may, I\u2019d like to suggest that that would be an appropriate prayer at that time: Thank you!\u00a0 Thank you!\u00a0 Thank you!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
If you have any resources, homilies, or suggestions for this series, feel free to email Nathan at\u00a0npchase@csbsju.edu<\/a>\u00a0or fill out the form in the \u201cNon Solum Question box\u201d on the\u00a0<\/em>Pray Tell<\/span>\u00a0homepage.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"God died so that we could live. That was the way that God chose for us to be able to live. We couldn\u2019t live \u2013 we can\u2019t live \u2013 by ourselves. By ourselves, all we can do is be born, and sin, and die. We can\u2019t save ourselves. If we will live \u2013 and we will live – it is because, and only because, God died for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3294,46,1321],"tags":[2936,728,1504],"class_list":["post-29839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ars-praedicandi","category-homiletics","category-homilies","tag-deacon-jim-pauwels","tag-good-friday","tag-triduum"],"yoast_head":"\n
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