Companion in suffering

Today’s culture of painkillers, materialism, hedonism, and self-worship ill prepares one for suffering and shame.

Yet now in these days of financial and economic turmoil, many are suddenly afflicted with suffering and even feel deep shame because of things such as unemployment and foreclosure.

No matter what we may be experiencing in our lives, on this Good Friday, we need to draw ever closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who fulfilled what was spoken of Him by the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading (Isaiah 52:13-53:12).

He was spurned and avoided by people,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces,
spurned, and we held him in no esteem.

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one smitten by God and afflicted.

But 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.