Today’s reading comes from author and professor Thomas Howard. As an interesting side note, Howard was brother to Elisabeth Elliot who wrote Through Gates of Splendor about her husband Jim and other missionaries who died in Ecuador.
Howard takes issue with the tendency to in a way skip over the crucifixion for the celebration of the empty tomb. It is important to remember, asserts Howard, that the Christ died in real time on a real cross. One of the implications for this focused remembering is to find Christ in our suffering and ourselves in His. The train of thought for Howard follows that if we see Christ’s suffering, we better understand our suffering, and we are more likely to respond with Christ’s forgiveness.
“For this Crucifix bids me also to the place where my exasperation or ire over others’ sins must be forsworn in the name of the Mercy that God himself offers to the perpetrators of sin (I being chiefly among them).”