When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, ‘It is finished’.
And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit (Jn 19:30)
My dear sisters and brothers, as we contemplate Jesus dead on the Cross, let us reflect on his death and our death.
We open the daily newspapers, we watch reports on Television. We read and see death everywhere: in wars, in the streets, in schools, in hospitals, at home. Today we see death on Golgotha, the death we are re-living now: the death of Christ the Innocent One, the Lamb of God, the Son o0f God and the Son of Mary.
We are celebrating Good Friday. Properly speaking we begin today  the celebration of the Pasch: the passage of Jesus from Death to Life, from Good Friday to Easter Vigil.  Good Friday is the memorial of the death of Jesus on the Cross. For us believers, the death of Jesus our Redeemer is a victorious death,  a death motivated by God’s incredible love for us all: “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not die but have eternal life†(Jn 3:16).
           “That whoever believes in him may not die� Yes, Jesus death, St. Paul tells us freed us not only from sin but also from death. Not from natural death, of course. We all – some sooner, some later -; we all shall die: “Man’s days are like those of the grass; like the flowers of the field it blooms; the wind sweeps over him and he is gone†(Ps 103:15-16). Jesus’ death freed us from a meaningless death.
The inescapable knowledge of our death puts us face to face with the meaning of our life and our death. What is the meaning of the life of Jesus and of his death on the cross? The meaning is Love! Someone said that when one loves someone his or her love is telling the beloved: “You shall never die.†God loves us, and therefore, we will never die. Jesus, God-Man, truly died physically; on the third day He rose from the dead. After him, we shall also die and be risen from the dead. His death and also our death because of him point to the resurrection. “I am not dying, I am entering eternal life†(St. Therese of the Child Jesus).
Do I accept my death? Do you accept your death? It is said that the young believe in death, but it happens to others; the old believe in death and in the approaching personal death. How about the adult? A person becomes an adult when he or she accepts for the first time his or her death.
We try to accept our death, part of our life, with hope, prayer, and above all, love – love of God and all neighbors. Truly, only love will accompany us when we die, that is, “the love we have accumulated through life†(S. Galilea).  Moreover, only our love accompanies our loved ones before they pass away: a compassionate love which does not allow our beloved sick and suffering to die earlier in their hearts than in their bodies, that is, to die a social death. Social death, or the death that may precede a biological death, is the death of those who feel totally alone and abandoned before dying.
Are we afraid of death? Partly, yes: it is natural to be a bit afraid facing our death or the death of our loved ones and also of those brothers and sisters who are crucified by forced poverty, violence, injustice and war. We are also believers, and our faith in Jesus tells us that death is not the end of life – only of this earthly life -, but a passage from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, a sort of “changing place from one room to another,†as Blessed Pope John Paul II told us before he passed away seven years ago.
Let us always remember that the death of Jesus on the Cross on Good Friday is a hope-filled death: “I am,†Jesus is telling us from his Cross, “I am the resurrection and the life.â€
My dear brothers and sisters, may we all have – when it comes – have a holy death. Let us together invoke the help of Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother and, after her Son’s death on the Cross, Our Lady of Solitude, with the Holy Mary!
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinner
 now and at the hour of our death. Amen
FAUSTO GOMEZ, OP
Good Friday 2012
St. Dominic’s Priory, Macau