Dear Friends, Here is "installment" #3 regarding the last seven words of Jesus. I hope my efforts are worth it!! This is taking some time, yet I find great meaning in this and hope it enriches your experience of Holy Week andEaster........................................................................................... The third set of words of Jesus is spoken to His mother and closest friend and youngest disciple, John. He says to His mother standing at the cross, "Woman, behold your Son." And then to John,, "Behold your mother." There is so, so much meaning in these words and they say a lot about who we are to Jesus and to His mother. .....Let us look at this. Good Friday saw almost everyone of Jesus' friends go into hiding. Judas sold him out; Peter denied him three times, and most others ran for fear for their lives. All of Jesus' efforts to build this special community seemed to fall apart. But in these words to his mother and to John we see this community coming into being at the foot of the cross. His mother is given a son in his closest friend, and the beloved disciple is given a mother. .....................................................................This is not just any community. Rather, it is our community; it is the birth of the Church, our spiritual home. Note that Jesus does not call Mary "Mother" but instead "Woman. This is because for Jesus in that moment she is the new Eve. The old Eve was the mother of all living beings. This is the new Eve who is the mother of all who live by faith. So this is our family, the place where we realize that Mary is our mother and John is our brother. Why is our new family born at the foot of a cross? Because what breaks up human community is hostility and accusation. We are hostile to others because they are not like us: black or white, Russian, Chinese or Syrian, Jewish or Muslim. They are people of homosexual orientation, political liberals or conservatives. Too different! We want to deport them or force them out of our neighborhood. Societies are too often built upon exclusion. We seek scapegoats who can bear away on their backs our fears and rivalries............................................................................At the cross Jesus takes upon himself all our hostilities, all the accusations which we make against each other. He is the "stone which the builders rejected but has become the cornerstone (of this new family)." (Psalm 119) So yes, Jesus is among us as one who is cast out, expelled. We have to be willing, then, to look at who in today's society do we want to accuse and expel, deport and exclude--in the nation, among our relatives or siblings, in our parish? Whom do we blame for the ills of our society or nation or family, for our own pain? To be a Christian, to take seriously being a follower of Jesus, is to recognize that at the foot of the cross our family is born and no one can be excluded from it . . . no one. We are brothers and sisters of each other. Do we really believe that? These are not just honorary titles. In Christ we share the same blood, the blood of the cross. Has this hit home yet for us?? To call someone your brother or sister is not just to state a relationship; it is the proclamation of reconciliation. When Joseph who was sold by his brothers into slavery but later ended up in Egypt as an important governmental figure and revealed himself to his brothers when they were desperate for food and protection for their families, he says to them, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt (Genesis 45:4) It is a statement of a healing truth............................................................................ In our world today, especially in the West, our Church, our family that is, is quite divided and polarized and needs people who will be courageous as Joseph was toward those who failed to love him. ................... Mary and the beloved disciple (he represents you and me) are brought to the cross by their love of Jesus. But their loves are different, that of a mother and that of a closest friend. Yet they have become one family in which there is no competition nor rivalry. The Church welcomes, embraces all kinds of very different ways of articulating the Christian faith life. Each of us is brought to Christ by a different sort of love. And often we miss recognizing our God in the love of another person. We can dismiss their faith as traditional or progressive, as romantic and too mystical, to intellectual or abstract. We may see it as a threat which we must deal with by expulsion. But at the foot of the cross we find each other as family. We are challenged to reach across all the boundaries, hostilities and suspicions that divide human beings and say, "Behold my brother, behold my sister." ........................................What about our ordinary families, then, the parents who gave us life, the people we marry, the children we beget, the fellow religious we live with in community? A family or community that is genuinely Christian goes beyond its natural boundaries and discovers other brothers and sisters in those who are not their relatives or kind. A family is supposed to form us to belong to humanity and more and more to see as Christ saw when hanging on the cross for us all.................................................................................................. Goodnight, and a very blessed Holy Week to you all. Bernie Owens