The Lord Jesus freely laid down His life for the salvation of the human race. He offered Himself to the Father as a sacrifice for our sins. He did it today, on Good Friday.
Good Friday is therefore a sacred day, one of the most sacred of the year. There are a number of ways to keep the day holy—going to church for the Sacred Liturgy, or Stations of the Cross, going to Confession, prayer, fasting, abstinence from meat.
These days, though, for some people, Good Friday passes more or less unnoticed. For some people it’s as good a day as any to go to a baseball game, or watch a movie, or go out to eat.
We live in a society in which some people do not keep Good Friday holy. This forces us to confront a serious question. How we spend Good Friday is not just a matter of personal devotional choice, of private preferences. The question we have to ask is a question about the human race as a whole.
Let’s put the question like this: Did Christ really have to die for us? Did mankind need Him to make the sacrifice He made for us today? Does the human race need a Savior?
Or are we really just fine on our own? Is the human race okay by itself? Can any human being say to Christ crucified: “Hey, thanks—but you went to too much trouble. Don’t do me any favors.”
Christ is a unique human being—He is the only divine human being. With Him, the human race as a whole can stand before God and say, “Lord, we are a race of sinners. We are dust and ashes before You. You made us out of love, and we have poured contempt on You in return. But we can boast of your only-begotten Son. He is just and true—He bore witness to You unto death—and He is one of us. See and love in us what You see and love in Him, O Creator, and have mercy on us.”
On the other hand what do we human beings have to show for ourselves without Christ? Left to ourselves, what are our hopes? Let’s consider…
We humans are ingenious. We have tall buildings. We have many, many cars, many television shows, a lot of guns and ammo. Our race has produced both LeBron James and Kobe Bryant at the same time. We have invented pizza, modern medicine, cellphones, umbrellas, space shuttles, and numerous other accomplishments. Splendid.
But when we go to meet God at the end of our lives, what will we do with all these things? Will they do us any good?
None of our accomplishments can exactly recommend us to God. God is perfect, and we are not. We have no claims on Him. Before Him, we have no rights. He owes us nothing. Everything we have, He gave us in the first place.
Without Christ we would come to the end of our earthly life in a state of terrifying weakness. We would be utterly bereft.
Are you or I going to go to judgment and then pull out an iPod and say, “Look, Lord—look at all this great music I put on my iPod. Shouldn’t you reward me for that?” Or am I going to say, “Look, Lord—I was a great cook. I grilled some killer hamburgers. Send me to heaven for my hamburgers.”
It really is ridiculous, the idea that we would be alright without Christ.
Do we need a Savior? We need Him more than we need oxygen. We need Him more than we need gravity to keep us from floating into outer space. We need Christ more than we need our incorrigible selves.
There is only one thing more desperate than the suffering Christ had to endure to save us today. The only thing more desperate is just how desperately we needed Him to do it.
The NBA All-Star Slam Dunk contest is always better than the game itself.
The game, however, was okay. Kobe could not miss in the third quarter. (I only watched the third quarter.) It is absurd that 265 points were scored in one game. The 192 points scored in the Syracuse-Georgetown game on Saturday set a dangerous precedent.
Shaq went out with a bang. This was Shaquille O’Neal’s last of fifteen N.B.A. All-Star games. (He was voted onto the team fifteen times, even though he didn’t play all fifteen games, due to injuries.) Only Kareem Abdul Jabbar has been voted onto more all-star teams–seventeen.
Check out my man Kobe facing LeBron. The arc on this ball is simply incredible. Into the rafters, then swish. Lakers handed the Cavs their first loss at home.
Also, the Wizards prevailed in Roy Hibbert’s return to Verizon Center! Washington beat the Indiana Pacers, 119-117.
Things had gotten so bad (3-13 record) that the Wizards decided to come in disguise to play the Lakers at the Verizon Center last night.
Then, amazingly, they almost beat my man Kobe and Co.!
Almost. The Wizards/Zephyrs are now 3-14. Kobe saved the game for the Lakers after a “valiant effort” in the fourth-quarter by the Wiz, as Phil Chenier put it.
This was the most exciting summer in sports I can remember.It included the following unforgettable events:
1.The Boston Celtics second-half comeback win over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game Four of the NBA Finals on June 12.The Celtics were down by twenty-four points at halftime—in Los Angeles.Then their starting center Kendrick Perkins went to the locker room with a shoulder injury early in the third quarter.And then the Celtics came back to win 97-91.
Even though the Lakers won Game Five, they were beaten after their Game Four loss at home; it was just a matter of time before the Celtics took the trophy.(Note regarding the fickleness of the basketball fan:I hated Kobe in June.Kevin Garnett was my man back then.)
2.The greatest Wimbledon Mens’ Final of all time on July 6.I turned off the t.v. at about 11:05 a.m. (I had to go say Mass), figuring that Nadal had Federer’s number and would soon be through with him.At 4:00 p.m., I turned the t.v. back to see who won—and it wasn’t over!Federer had rallied, and they were finishing the fifth set.Nadal certainly deserved to win, but Federer showed a level of resilience and determination not seen since the Pelopennesian Wars.
3.The emergence of Phil Dalhausser onto the world stage.This guy is my man!I have never had more fun than watching Rogers and Dalhausser march to the Beach Volleyball gold.(May-Trainor and Walsh are awesome and beautiful; Rogers is deeply impressive—but the Beijing Beast is MY MAN!)
4.USA Basketball Redemptionin an unforgettable Gold Medal game.It was a championship game for the history books.Our NBA-star squad played as a team with high-school-like heart.It was enough to restore your faith in the goodness of man.(Perhaps that is a bit of an overstatement—but here’s to hoping that the Bad Years are over.I can even live with the arms full of tattoos now—though the sooner Dennis Rodman is altogether forgotten, the better.) And of course now I love Kobe as if he were my own blood brother.
Of course, there is also the business about Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals, more than anyone has ever won at a single Olympic games. (He did win; he definitely touched first.)
Let’s give the good Lord His due for giving us such an unforgettable summer. We should never take His blessings for granted. I can’t imagine He will give us another summer like it for a while. Will He be pleased to give us a good Redskins’ season? Will He exult or chastise Jim Zorn? (At least Jason Taylor has no ligament damage.) Only time will tell…
I am a little delirious this evening, since my alarm woke me up at 2:20 this morning.Like any self-respecting basketball-fan patriot, I got up to watch the Redeem Team do the work of basketball redemption.Then I spent my priestly Sunday carrying out the work of the Redemption (of the world—basketball players and everybody else) at the Holy Altar.So I am seriously bushed. But the game was worth getting up early for, and not just because it was a surprisingly competitive game.(Hats off to Spain for fighting tough to the end.)
Anyway, the NBC announcer Mike Breen said this about the smiles on the faces of Bryant, Wade, James, and Co. when the last seconds of the fourth quarter were ticking down and American victory was finally assured: “These guys are all multi-millionaires.But these smiles are something special.The gold medal is worth more to them than all the money in their NBA contracts.”
Now, the man whom I regard as having generally infallible insight—Wesley Pruden—seems not to buy Kobe Bryant’s protestations of innocent, wide-eyed patriotism (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/19/going-for-brass-in-beijing-2008/).The great sage of the Times refers to the birth of the Savior in this column about shallow patriotism. Perhaps he mentions Christ in order to put patriotism in its proper place, below allegiance to God and His Church.If so, I commend him for this.But in the case of Kobe and the Redeem Team, I think Master Pruden is being obtusely cynical (or maybe he just isn’t a true basketball fan).The euphoria of a few minutes after 4:00 a.m. this morning is genuine, for the players and for us fans.
Why?Why is it almost impossible NOT to be patriotic?Some might answer that it is because our nation has such beautiful ideals, that we stand for something so wonderful.I am not about to tackle the question of what exactly our ideals are, where they come from, and what they mean—maybe I will try to answer those questions later, after a night when I have had a bit more sleep.Nonetheless, I would like to say that the ideals of our country (beautiful as they may be) are not the primary reason why I was so happy in the pre-dawn hours this morning—or Kobe, or LaBron, or anyone else.The joy does not have to do with the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.
We are patriotic first and foremost because it is a way that we love ourselves properly.The good Lord has taught us in the Gospel to love ourselves in proportion with how much God loves us, and He has taught us to love ourselves exactly as much as we love everyone else (not less).Everything intimately connected to us is therefore wonderful and lovable, too.First, our own bodies.Second, husband, wife, children.Third, parents.And fourth:Where we are from.
Painful loss on Easter Sunday
I love the Georgetown Hoyas with a spontaneous love, because it is where I am from:I was born in Georgetown hospital and grew up within a long walk from it.Northwest Washington, D.C. is my home, beloved to me in a way that no other place could ever be.
I love Team USA because it is my team, the team of my country, made up of fellow citizens who speak my language, eat the same kinds of food as me, and tend to find the same things funny and entertaining. The players on the Olympic basketball team may be black, and I am as white as they come, but they are nonetheless Americans like me; I have more in common with them than I have with the Spaniards. Kobe, LaBron, Dwayne Wade, and me (and the rest of the team) are united as sons of America the Beautiful; we are united in wanting that gold for our country.
Obviously, it is wrong for me to despise people who are not like me; after all, they are people, too, like I am.But it would likewise be a sin against proper self-love for me to suppress my natural affection for those who are more like me than others are.It is anti-social to deny our natural, spontaneous affinities.We are made to be social and to relate to the people near us, the people like us.
Some of us are made to be diplomats and study how to communicate precisely and effectively with other kinds of people.More power to the diplomats!We need them desperately; they are unsung heroes.But not everyone is made to take the Foreign Service exam.Most of us are made to love the people like us.
There is one more dimension to my spontaneous love for Team USA, one more reason why patriotism is a profound virtue:We love our country because we love the part of the earth where we live. We love the shape of the hills, the quality of the light in the sky, the way the seasons change. We love the buildings and the roads that we know.
Most people live their whole lives in their home territory.Why wouldn’t we?This is the place we are used to, that we know, the place full of familiarity that evokes memories.The people we love who have died are buried in the earth here.The people we know live nearby.All the world-wide webbing on earth cannot displace us physically from the part of the earth where we live. Eventually we have to turn the computer off and look outside.It is a part of loving ourselves well to love our part of the earth.
I prepared an eight-page thematic synthesis of the homilies and talks our Holy Father gave during his visit to the United States last year.
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Of course, there is also the business about Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals, more than anyone has ever won at a single Olympic games. (He did win; he definitely touched first.)
Father Mark White Blog 
