We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Reading

Psalm 22:16-18 New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition (NRSVACE)

Dogs are all around me;
a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shrivelled;

I can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

Meditation

War is a terribly dehumanising thing and soldiers of all ages have had to find ways of dealing with that fact without being totally dehumanised themselves.  They see and do such terrible things – is it any wonder that they became accustomed to taking whatever they could as the ‘spoils’ from the beaten and vanquished?  Here, do they see Jesus as a person at all?  Or is he a ‘loser’ and therefore not worthy of human recognition?  It is an irony that for a Jew of Jesus’ time nakedness was a sign of being debased as a human being – of becoming a ‘non-person’.  Dehumanising forces are hard to control however.  Those who dehumanise are themselves dehumanised by their very hardness of heart and callousness .  Here Jesus takes his place with the destitute and outcast – the ‘nones’ – no name, no country, no home, no humanity who, therefore are treated differently to ‘real’ people.  All over the world we see this happening all the time.  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be..?

Question

Can I see the humanity of those who think differently to me?  Or who look different to me?  Or who have different cultures, different skins, different attitudes?  Jesus asks me to be fully human and so be divine too as he is.  Can I let that happen to me and to others too?

Our Father………..Glory be……………Hail Mary………….

Prayer

Jesus, open my eyes to see everyone and everything as you see them. My I always glory and rejoice in the differences and variety of human beings. Amen

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