Within Your Wounds, hide me: Good Friday homily sermon

Within Your Wounds, hide me

Homily for Good Friday

by Fr. Tommy Lane

The passion and death of Jesus is a mystery beyond our comprehension. It is a mystery because it is God’s love for us. We understand bits and pieces, but our minds are too finite to understand the whole thing. We have many thoughts today. Above all, we are conscious of Jesus’ love for us that impelled him to undergo his passion and death for our salvation. My wish for you today is that you know Jesus’ love for you, that you know his love for you not just as a concept, not just as something you believe, but that you meet the love of Jesus and know his love for you in your heart. If you carry a cross and unite it with Jesus’ suffering for the salvation of the world, Jesus loves you for that. Our brothers and sisters to the east share in Jesus’ cross as they are being crucified by war. We keep them and our wish for peace in our thoughts and prayers.

We are also conscious today of the reason Jesus underwent his passion and death for us. The prophecy of Jesus’ passion in our first reading today from Isaiah tells us why: to make up for our sins,

it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured. . .
he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed. (Isa 53:4-5)

In the Old Covenant, before an animal was sacrificed in the temple, the priest would put his hand on the animal’s head to signify the sins of the person making the offering being transferred onto that animal which was then offered for his sins. In the New Covenant, our sins went on Jesus during his passion and death. He willingly submitted to the torture of his passion and death to take our sins on himself. The prayers of the Novena to Divine Mercy that begins today, highlight this:

Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. (Diary of St. Faustina §476)

In 2015, I had the privilege of concelebrating Mass with a group of priests of the Archdiocese of Turin in their cathedral during one of those rare moments when the Shroud of Turin is on display. The shroud was on display behind us as we concelebrated Mass. As we prayed the Confiteor at the beginning of Mass, we all turned to face the shroud where we could literally see the effects of our sins in Jesus’ wounds visible on the shroud.

The popular prayer, Anima Christi, which begins “Soul of Christ, sanctify me, Body of Christ, save me” contains some beautiful sentiments such as “within your wounds hide me.” That is a most profound thought, hiding and finding refuge and protection in Jesus’ wounds. There is no better place to be because Jesus’ wounds saved us. The beautiful hymn based on that prayer, Soul of my Savior, sanctify my breast echoes that sentiment,

Deep in Thy wounds Lord, hide and shelter me,
so shall I never, never part from Thee.

Every single one of Jesus’ wounds was a wound for love of us. When Jesus revealed the love of his Sacred Heart for us to St. Margaret Mary, he said, “My Divine Heart is so on fire with love for all mankind” and “If only they would make me some return for my love, I should think but little of all I have done for them and would wish, were it possible, to suffer still more.”

Saved and protected by Jesus’ wounds of love, by the mystery of his love for us, covered over by Jesus’ wounds, thinking about Jesus’ love for us and how he willingly sacrificed himself to save us, we naturally are grateful and love Jesus in return. That is why we are here today, to return love for Jesus’ love of us.

We began Mass last night as normal with the sign of the cross but ended without the usual concluding blessing. We began today without making a sign of the cross and will conclude today in silence without the regular blessing. We will begin tomorrow night without a sign of the cross. All this shows that these events we celebrate these three days are one action by Jesus saving us. So, as we celebrate Jesus’ passion and death today, we know it is not the last word. The last word is Jesus’ resurrection. Even in our first reading from Isaiah half a millennium before Jesus, there was already a very strong suggestion of Jesus’ resurrection. It said, “he shall see the light.” (Isa 53:11) It is agreed by those who are unbiased that the carbon-14 dating of the Turin Shroud was flawed. (In case anyone has concerns about the shroud due to carbon-14 dating, see this pdf and pages 91-200 in this pdf.)Unbiased studies of the shroud are a fascinating and enlightening study of Jesus’ passion. If you have a devotion to Jesus’ passion, you will want to study the shroud. The image on the cloth is not paint, and no technology that we have nowadays can put an image on a cloth with all the characteristics that the image on the shroud has. So how did that image get on the cloth? The common suggestion is that it was a burst of radiation at the very moment of Jesus’ resurrection. As we heard in our first reading, “he shall see the light” and in that light Jesus left us an image of himself at the very moment of his resurrection. We look forward to Jesus’ light tomorrow night.

This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.

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