They divided my clothing among them. They cast lots for my robe.

Psalm 21 (22)

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
You are far from my plea and the cry of my distress.
O my God, I call by day and you give no reply;
I call by night and I find no peace.

Yet you, O God, are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you set them free.
When they cried to you, they escaped.
In you they trusted and never in vain.

But I am a worm and no man,
scorned by men, despised by the people.
All who see me deride me.
They curl their lips, they toss their heads.
'He trusted in the Lord, let him save him;
let him release him if this is his friend.'

Yes, it was you who took me from the womb,
entrusted me to my mother’s breast.
To you I was committed from my birth,
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Do not leave me alone in my distress;
come close, there is none else to help.

Many bulls have surrounded me,
fierce bulls of Bashan close me in.
Against me they open wide their jaws,
like lions, rending and roaring.

Like water I am poured out,
disjointed are all my bones.
My heart has become like wax,
it is melted within my breast.

Parched as burnt clay is my throat,
my tongue cleaves to my jaws.

Many dogs have surrounded me,
a band of the wicked beset me.
They tear holes in my hands and my feet
and lay me in the dust of death.

I can count every one of my bones.
These people stare at me and gloat;
they divide my clothing among them.
They cast lots for my robe.

O Lord, do not leave me alone,
my strength, make haste to help me!
Rescue my soul from the sword,
my life from the grip of these dogs.
Save my life from the jaws of these lions,
my poor soul from the horns of these oxen.

I will tell of your name to my brethren
and praise you where they are assembled.
‘You who fear the Lord give him praise;
all sons of Jacob, give him glory.
Revere him, Israel’s sons.

'For he has never despised
nor scorned the poverty of the poor.
From him he has not hidden his face,
but he heard the poor man when he cried.'

You are my praise in the great assembly.
My vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and shall have their fill.
They shall praise the Lord, those who seek him.
May their hearts live for ever and ever!

All the earth shall remember and return to the Lord,
all families of the nations worship before him;
for the kingdom is the Lord’s, he is ruler of the nations.
They shall worship him, all the mighty of the earth;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust.

And my soul shall live for him, my children serve him.
They shall tell of the Lord to generations yet to come,
declare his faithfulness to peoples yet unborn:
‘These things the Lord has done.’

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

From the Office of Readings for Good Friday, 2015, via Universalis.com

Reflections on the Sorrowful Mysteries

Earlier today, I visualized a certain transformation that should happen to us as we journey in faith. We begin our journey as sinners whose guilt rightly includes wrongdoing that the Lord atones for in his passion and death. So in meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries, it is our sins that unfold before Jesus, bringing him to tremble at the thought of his impending sacrifice. It is our sins that scourge him, and our hands that hold the scourge that flays and humiliates him in excruciating pain. Our idolatry of power, comfort, wealth and things of the world above right worship of God add to the thorns that adorn his crown, and add to the shameful verbal abuse of crying Ave! Ave Rex Iudaeum! with our hearts somewhere else. It is our sins that weighs down the cross that he resolves to carry through to Calvary anyway. It is our sins that nail him to the cross in a holocaust for our ransom.

But there is a transformation that should take place as we journey. The more we cooperate with grace and allow the Holy Spirit to sanctify us, the more we participate in the passion and death of Christ. Since we are in the Body, that same body that suffered and died for us, then as we are willing, we unite our own sufferings with Christ. We participate in agonizing for souls, making their pain and suffering (due to sin) our own -- a work of compassion. We join our tribulations and persecutions with his, as he foretold we would encounter as his disciples, bearing the scars of scourging on our backs, and humbling thorns on our heads. We carry our daily cross, and bear the burdens of others too, as best we can. Finally, we mortify ourselves, dying to sin, dying to ourselves and concupiscence. And we experience the tremendous grace that the Father sends through the Spirit, because of love. The Sorrowful Mysteries come alive in our lives more and more as we allow them to, and by God's grace and mercy, we slowly switch sides. Rather than the perpetrators whose sins wound Christ, we become participants of Christ's sacrifice, sharing some of the pain and redemptive work of love in our lives, with the hope of thereby sharing in the glorious resurrection one day.

On war and tears

My wife and I recently watched the anime Graveyard of the Fireflies on DVD, a 1988 war anime movie, which, as one comment in IMDB says, is "the best movie you will never want to see again." I have to agree with what I think is a fierce assertion as to this movie's power. Days after, the thought of what the lead characters underwent still breaks my heart. And I must remind myself, moreover, that millions all over the world have gone through and continue to experience much of the same devestation.