Good Friday, not Bad Friday
(ഈ ഈസ്റ്റരിന്റെ സ്ത്രീപക്ഷ വീക്ഷണത്തിന് ശ്രീ ജെയിംസ് കോട്ടൂർ അയച്ചുതന്ന പ്രതികരണം ആണ് താഴെ കൊടുത്തിരിക്കുന്നത്.)
“Dear Zachji you hit the nail right on the head when you concluded:
സമൂഹത്തിൽഅവഗണിക്കപ്പെടുന്നവരും, അശരണരും,സ്ത്രീകളും വിധവകളും, കുട്ടികളുംപരിരക്ഷിക്കപ്പെടുമ്പോൾ മാത്രമേ ഇവിടെ ദൈവരാജ്യംവന്നു എന്ന് നമുക്ക് അവകാശപ്പെടുവാൻകഴിയുകയുള്ളൂ.
Which child even in the second or third standard does not understand the meaning of “Good” or “Friday”? Yet these educated illiterates want our children and unthinking faithful to understand that “Good Friday” means “Sad Friday” or “Bad Friday” to weep over, and not to rejoice over.
It was for this very reason Jesus himself told the daughters of Jerusalem: “Do not weep for me but weep for your children and their children” etc. I wrote an article years ago on this very topic: “Do not weep for me” during Holy week. It is called GOOD because the greatest good on earth was done that day, laying down one’s life for the victory of truth to vindicate what he told Pontius Piolet “For this I have come into the world to bear witness to truth”, not to shed crocodile tears and day long processions instead of visiting the sick and serving the needy on the “periphery” as Pope Francis says.
The institutional church is doing just the opposite of what Jesus told us to do: to worship God in the temple of one’s heart, in the form of LOVE, to pray to God the Father in secret and not to Him, to build living churches – caring for the lame, blind, deaf, hungry, lonely, dying (when you have done to them you have done to me), go first to get reconciled to your neighbor who is your enemy number one (You don’t get enemies in US or Africa, Your enemies are of your own household), stop building churches with brick and mortar, no stone upon a stone will be left. Stop crying over Christ, start crying over opening or closing bars to mint money, similarly building churches, hospitals, colleges through all sorts of corrupt practices, follow instead the example of Mother Theresa, the saint of the gutter, or Francis of Assisi. But who has ears to hear, eyes to see and common sense to understand that the paradise to be built is here below picturesquely presented by Jesus when he said: “Thy kingdom come here on EARTH as it is in heaven.” You and I have to be the builders of that paradise. james kottoor
Fr. Jijo Kurian (Capuchin) wrote this beautiful comment:
ReplyDeleteZacharias, The Gospels were written later than Paul. The stories of the Resurrection in the gospels are very “simple,” unadorned with theological comments. The Resurrection itself is not described. (In fact nobody saw resurrection. Nor can we say it took place on the 3rd day. When the ladies reached at the tomb in the early morning after Sabbath the resurrection had already taken place. When? Nobody knows. According to John's theology resurrection is on the cross itself: "You will be with me in Paradise TODAY." These resurrection stories only describe the discovery of the empty tomb and meetings with Jesus. The Easter narratives represent the attempt to proclaim the Easter message in ANOTHER MEDIUM, the Medium of narration (story telling) set within a historical context. However, this attempt later brings in a number of puzzles and problems along with its “eye witness nature”:
• It is difficult to reconcile the various Gospel accounts on matters of: where did Jesus appear after his resurrection? Galilee? Jerusalem? Both?, how many women came to the tomb. Which angels did they see?
• Unlike the Passion narrative, which is a continuous story from start to finish, and which is unfolded in fundamentally the same way in all the four Gospels, the resurrection of Jesus came to be proclaimed in a group of independent stories.