Good Friday: What Christ Saw

Imagine, for a moment, seeing as the Crucified Christ sees. As He looks out from His place on the Cross, what is it His eyes rest upon? His blessed Mother, certainly. The Magdalene, St. John, a few scattered disciples, some Pharisees, along with some soldiers.

But what He truly sees - what His eyes rest upon - is us. Christ sees all of us as He looks down in agony from His cross. We bear some responsibility for all of this. It is futile to blame any one person or group of people. The fault is everywhere and it is no further away than our own hearts and wills. Sinfulness is universal and, like a deadly disease, it infects us - every one of us. So, in the words of St. Paul, we must confess that the good we want to do, we do not do; and what we want to avoid doing is the very thing we do.

So we watch now with Christ. But as we watch, we had best do it with contrite and humble hearts, praying for our own forgiveness and for the forgiveness of the entire world. Pray with the understanding that Jesus Christ, knowing all there is to know about each one of us, submitted to death on a cross so that we might be forgiven and restored to unity with God and with each other through the merits of His sacrificial self-offering.

So we behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And He looks upon us, the lambs for whom He – the true Lamb – is sacrificed. May we accept His forgiveness so that we may do the good; and in doing the good, may we receive His peace.

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Painting: “What Our Lord Saw from the Cross”

By James Joseph Tissot (1836-1902)