Dear Friends, I write on Sunday evening, April 2, two weeks to the day before Easter. I want to tell you briefly about a funny incident that happened to me earlier this past week, and then pass on to you a summary of some very meaningful reflections on the first of Jesus' seven last words spoken in his last hour or two of his earthly life. It is my hope to give similar summaries of the other six words on this blogsite over the next two weeks................................................................................................................................. First, the funny incident. Last Wednesday, late morning, I was sitting in my high-back chair at my desk and looking intently at the screen of my laptop computer. There was the usual pleasant weather outside, so as I always do, unless it is raining, I had my windows open, and so too the door to my room on the opposite side of the room. Doing this gives me good cross ventilation. The open door leads out to a long grassy area and flowers that separate our Jesuit living quarters into two wings. The windows in my room are almost full length windows that reach nearly to the ceiling and then down to a lower counter cut in a shape to match the bay window arrangement. So the windows start around three feet above ground level. While I was reading intently what was on my computer, suddenly I noticed from the corner of my right eye a shadow. I first thought it was one of the cats that roams our grounds. Two or three times one of the cats has come into my room, slowly, carefully. But this shadow darted in and behind my chair. I then quickly looked left and noticed scampering out my door a lengthy slender monkey, with light brown hair and graced with a very long tail. As quickly as it had entered, it was gone, out into our court yard and probably looking for other members of its family of monkeys visiting our mango grove and glutting themselves on the many ripened mangos. (Don't worry, we have been getting our share of very tasty mangos. They are so very good eating!) I think he (or was it a she?) saw from outside my windows a quick way to get to the courtyard and used my room as a quick passageway. ................................................................................................................ OK. Now to something more seasonal, the first of Jesus' last words spoken from the cross. I have to say ahead of time that what I am writing is inspired by what I have been reading from Fr. Timothy Radcliffe's little book, "Seven Last Words." He is a British Dominican priest and a very gifted writer. I have found much of what he writes to be quite meaningful. I pass along these gems to you in hopes you too will find them meaningful and conducive to prayer in these last two weeks of Lent......................................................................................................The first word of Jesus from the cross is: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do." Luke 23:34 Just amazing, before the crucifixion, before all the insults, forgiveness is offered. And so too in our own lives, before we sin, forgiveness is offered. How shocking! How easy to abuse by presuming such from God! At the same time how embarrassing!!! God's mercy does not trivialize our lives and actions. God takes seriously what we do and how we choose. How could He not?? His beloved Son was crucified! Sin does such things! But loving mercy is infinitely stronger and more lasting than sin. That is why Easter Sunday follows Good Friday, why forgiveness overcomes our evil following from our self-centered choices and petty selfishness. It makes the dead live and the ugly beautiful. Forgiveness enables us to dare to face what we have done. We dare to do this not to feel awful but to open our lives to this re-creative love of God. It makes all that was sterile and barren to be meaningful because in forgiveness God brings what was cut off by selfishness back into His Heart and thereby redeems it, reconnects it to Himself. ................................................................................................. Jesus asks for forgiveness not just for those who murdered him but also for those who were being crucified with Him. The two thieves stand for the millions of people throughout history who have been crucified in such a variety of ways. We have to ask ourselves: who are the people we are now crucifying by the way we structure the world economy, called globalization, and the poverty it is producing? Who are we crucifying through our violence and war? Whom do we wound even within our homes? Because we know that forgiveness comes firs, then we can dare to open our eyes to all of this. Forgiveness means that our sins can find their place in our path to God. No failure, then, need be a dead end. Instead, it can be, if we accept forgiveness, something about which we will be able to say: "O happy fault." because paradoxically it opened us to coming closer to Christ. .............................................................................................................. There is told the story of a Japanese artist painting a vase with a beautiful picture of a glorious mountain on it. Then one day someone dropped the vase and it shattered into many pieces. Slowly the artist glued all the pieces back together. And to acknowledge what had happened to this vase, its broken history, he lined each joint with a thread of gold paint. The vase turned out to be even more beautiful and admired than it was before.