Good Friday 2025 Year C

We are better than we think we are. There are some of us who suffer from poor self-esteem. Those with low-esteem can be filled with such self-loathing or self-deprecation that they are unable to see themselves for who they truly are. They tend to paint themselves in rather unattractive light. However, there is another side to our poor self-esteem. We are more sinful than we think we are. Some may feel that we are not that sinful or rather our sins are just nothing compared to someone who murders or rapes or steals millions. Either perspective of ourselves is myopic.

This short-sightedness is the reason for our inability to appreciate what Christ had done for us. But then, why do we lack the capacity to acknowledge our sinfulness or even appreciate that our soul could be in danger of eternal damnation?

Firstly, the notion of sin is that it resides in others and not in ourselves. Take the case of the Woman caught Adultery and was nearly stoned to death. The crowd that gathered around her definitely felt that sin was in her until Christ challenged them. It is possible that for some of us, sin is the other person and not me. The way we look at ourselves is “I am sinful but not really”. A good example is “my spouse makes me very angry”. We justify our anger because somebody else did not behave better. We this on the roads or the government offices or services. We justify our racism because someone does subscribe to our work ethics.

Secondly, we are traumatised by pain. Thus, many lament why there should be pain, sorrow and suffering? Perhaps this is coming from our logical and rational side which considers suffering as incompatible with the idea of a good God. How can a good God allow suffering? Or we have simply forgotten that this is a fallen world. We are affected by concupiscence and are always in need of conversion. However, when we feel unjustly done to, the attendant feeling is victimhood. In a therapeutic society, one whose goal is to feel good, we have been taught that poor self-esteem is detrimental to our mental well-being. We must never be guilt-ridden.

As we become more and more entitled victims, we may find it hard to process personal responsibility let alone contemplate our sinfulness or even the possibility of damnation. Sin makes one feel guilty and since we are taught to reject guilt-feelings, it is hard to have remorse for one’s multitude of sins. Furthermore, we have reduced sins and our responsibility for them, to sicknesses or pathologies in which case we consider ourselves less culpable since we are suffering from some forms of mental illness. I have a condition that causes me to do something bad. Therefore I cannot be held fully responsible.

Thirdly, there is a sense that we also feel useless. How many of us have gone confession after confession and come out only to commit the same sin. The inability to modify our behaviour leaves one with a horrible sense of helplessness and nobody wants to be reminded of that. Uselessness or even low self-esteem besides, the point of confession is to take ownership or personal responsibility for one’s sinful behaviour. It is not on account of big sins that I go to hell. Instead it is because of the small sins I ignore that imperil my soul.

It is not a form of self-loathing to think of sin. In fact, there are three graves underneath the main aisle. Graves in the Church or Cathedral, apart from giving prominence to ecclesiastical figures—like Sovereigns or Bishops—are basically memento mori. They are reminders of death, not macabre because their presence is to encourage reflection on one’s sinfulness and also to invite one to repentance. For without contrition, it is not easy to appreciate what Christ has done for us.

The recognition of sin should lead to the awareness that we need a Saviour. But if we have no sin, then He has died for nothing which makes this rather long service a total waste of time and also confirms that we may be suffering from the disorder of self-hatred or masochism. Do we need to subject ourselves to this self-torture if that is not self-loathing? Perhaps the greatest obstacle to our conversion is found in the remark made by Pope Pius XII in 1946. The greatest sin is the loss of the sense of sin. While modern man may suffer from the lack of self-esteem, he suffers even more by the lack of conscientious acknowledgement that he is a sinner.

The Passion Gospel today is read in its entirety for a good reason. It is a form of contemplation because it basically to carry us into the scenes of what He had to undergo. We are transported to the Via Dolorosa so that we can feel for ourselves that He died to free us from the shackles of sin. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Good Friday is the celebration of the ultimate act of love by God for the redemption and salvation of humankind.

Thus, the fact that we are here reveals that whether we know it or not, we desire to be saved. Unless one were self-loathing, a masochist or a pain-addict, everyone is searching for the Saviour. It is by His grace that we are not in hell. Such an expression may sound rather condemnatory but if it should help one to recognise and change, then one soul is saved.