This quote from Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s book, The Cross and the Beatitudes: Lessons on Love and Forgiveness, seems fitting for today on Good Friday:
There is a personal equation between that Cross and us. Life with its rebellions, its injustices, its sins, all played a role in the Cruxifixion. We can no more wash our hands of our guilt than Pilate could wash his as he held them up under a noonday sun and declared himself innocent.
It was not so much the Cruxifixion that hurt and wounded, it was not Annas, it was not Caiphas, it was not the exectioners, for “they knew not what they did”; it was not his enemies who caused his greatest sorrow: “If my enemies had done this, I could have borne it.” It was us who grieved him most, for we know what we do—we have tasted his sweetmeats; we have broken Bread with him; we are his familiars. That is our sorrow—that he who came to heal the broken hearts had his own Heart broken by us.
But mourning is not despair. If we have crucified Christ, there is pardon: “Father, forgive them”; if we have pierced Mary’s heart, there is pardon still: “Son, behold your mother”; if there are tears in our eyes, they shall be wiped away: “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”