Seb wrote this to introduce some articles they were going to read and discuss in one of his recovery groups:
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Jn. 14
“For it is love I desire, not sacrifice…” Hos. 6:6
Because of these words, when I’m able, I gaze at the Crucifix during the “Our Father”. I do this to remind myself that God the Father and Son are not independent contractors that go about their own business, touching base via a phone call occasionally. They are two persons that are deeply intertwined on every level by the Holy Spirit of Love. When the son decided it was high time to take on flesh and go rescue us lost sheep, the Father did not hold him back from that great mission and in fact supported him in every way, though it pained him to do so. They both knew what it would cost.
Gazing at the crucifix, I’m reminded that in a very real sense the Father actually experienced bodyliness vicariously through his son. In the movie “The Shack”, Papa (the Father character) reveals the nail prints in his wrists when questioned about why he ‘abandoned’ his son on the cross. In fact, as Cardinal Cantalamessa aptly points out, Western liturgical art is rich with images of the trinity showing the grieving Father intimately present at the crucifixion and holding his dead son (a fatherly pieta of sorts) afterwards always connected by the Spirit of Love in the form of a dove. I’ve included a sampling of Trinity images at the end of this document.
Cantalamessa uses deft and expert strokes in these two good Friday sermons (see his book: The Power of the Cross) to set the record straight. Far from being cruelly demanded by the Father, the rescue mission to save our souls was the Son’s idea and it was a perfect offering of love to the Father in the Spirit of Love to woo and to win humanity back… to bring home a bride to the heavenly court. This is a main theme in the Theology of the Body which is why we are reading these two sermons this lent. May it deepen our understanding of the loving intimacy between the members of the Holy Trinity.
Posted below are some of the images I found for Seb which he shared at the
meetings to support the above:
