St Mary's

I would like to thank the Columban Mission Institute for the recently produced Australian Version of The Stations of the Forests (www.columban.org.au/Archives/…/video-stations-of-the-forest/)

Its timely production comes in this “International Year of the Forest” where globally we are invited to be more conscious of protecting our fragile forests. And timely because of the debate, in our country, around the existence of a Carbon Tax and how best we can offset the enormous amount of CO₂ emission presently in our atmosphere creating what most scientists admit is a climate change. And maybe we are seeing the effects of it with the proliferation of severe climate events in recent times globally.

To have a reflection on this day where we remember and call to mind the sufferings of Jesus, and to connect them with the suffering of our planet is indeed timely.

The crucifixion of our innocent earth by the unconscious forces of humanity, are paralleled in the life and brutal death by crucifixion of Jesus. Our planet is being crucified by the same forces of power, greed and exploitation which killed Jesus. It is this connection that we are invited on this Good Friday to become ever more aware-aware that these forces are not just found over there, and out there, but in our very lives.

We are each capable of such power, greed and exploitation.

The death we are to reflect on is not just the death of the innocent one in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but the death we are invited to, is a death to these passions and forces within us. These forces have exploited and plundered our Earth and all life there upon.

We are invited to die as Jesus dies to these forces; to die to the Ego which wants to dominate and exploit; to die both individually and collectively.

The anthropocentric (human-centered) attitude to our existence can no longer serve us. It is destroying our mother, our earth, which has birthed us and given us life. One year on, the images of the sludge caused by the BP oil spill in the Mexican gulf are graphic proof that we are destroying our home and much of the life within it. The decimated images we have just seen of the native forests of the Philippines, and desertification that follows are another shameful example.

The cross invites us to surrender our lives, our egos, our plans, as Jesus does – in his words on the cross “ Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” or, and prior to the crucifixion in the garden of Gethsemane “ Father let this cup pass, but not my will, but yours be done”. The cross speaks of Letting Go into the suffering, into the wilderness, and, into the mystery. It is a letting go not because in the end there could be or will be a resurrection, but in the letting go, in the surrender, in the acceptance itself is resurrecting- or to understand the true essence of the word resurrection, to truly awaken.

In a moment we will be invited to come forward and venerate the cross, that symbol of inviting us to die to self as the grain of wheat must in order to yield a rich harvest, so too, we must if we are to truly awaken.