Following is the prepared homily from Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted on March 20, 2016:

Today we begin the week that changed the world.

But when Jesus’ suffered death on the Cross, it seemed to change nothing of importance. It only seemed to prove He was not the Son of God. How could a God of love allow His beloved Son to undergo such a horrific suffering? And why does God allow many of you to suffer?

Because of His death on the Cross, the hopes of Jesus’ Apostles were shattered. His closest followers fled in fear, or went away, beating their breasts in shame. However, during the Passion of Christ, a few — very few, but still a few — saw with the eyes of faith the love of God conquering hatred and despair:

• Mary, His mother, and Mary Magdalene
• Simon of Cyrene who was forced to help Jesus to carry His Cross, and
• one of the criminals who was crucified beside Him.

All these found God’s love in a place they least expected, at a time they anticipated disaster, in a way they never thought possible. They found God’s love because they were in the presence of Jesus. Wherever He is, there is mercy, there is peace. AND wherever there is suffering, He is there.

During the Passion, 3 statements by Jesus reveal the love of God present at work in suffering. Let us briefly recall these:

First, Jesus says, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they are doing.”

Jesus knows what gives His Father joy: “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who have no need to repentance” (Lk 15:7). The suffering of shame that we experience when we confess our sins is transformed into joy that this world cannot give. Only God’s forgiveness and mercy can fill our souls to the brim with rejoicing.

The joy of God’s Kingdom does not come to us on a silver platter. We must repent and seek God’s mercy. Then, as soon as we suffer the sting of shame at confessing our sins, the fire of God’s love consumes our embarrassment and replaces it with such gladness that we can hardly recall that we had been sad. Jesus says, “I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Lk 15:10).

The second saying of Jesus comes from when the criminal crucified on one side of Jesus asks Him to remember him when He comes into His Kingdom, Jesus replies, “I assure you, this day you will be with me in paradise.” Could there have been a more painful time in this criminal’s life? Here he was suffering the agony of crucifixion, personal shame and the public ridicule of having wasted his whole life. Yet, precisely at that moment of intense suffering and shame, Jesus was right beside Him, suffering the same kind of pain — even though He was totally innocent — suffering this out of love for His heavenly Father and out of love for this criminal and every other human person. Jesus says to him: “Today you will be with me in paradise!” Here is the first man to be canonized, to be publicly proclaimed a saint in heaven, and it is done by Jesus Himself—that is the mystery of love we find at the Cross. This explains the ancient Latin saying: “Ave Crux, spes unica! Hail O Cross, our only hope!”

Third, the final words that Jesus says from the Cross also reveal His love, “Father… into your hands I commend my spirit.”

This was not the first time Jesus spoke these words. All His life He had prayed in these words. This is perhaps the first prayer that Jesus learned from His mother Mary, the prayer that He said every night of His earthly life, the words that Jewish parents for more than 2,000 years have taught their children to pray each night: Psalm 31: 5. Even as Jesus was dying on the Cross, He prayed with the love and trust of a child to His Father: “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.”

Jesus’ death on the Cross is His greatest act of love. “Greater love than this no one has, to lay down his love for his friends.”

The last three things Jesus said from the Cross reveal love’s power to transform sorrow into joy, sin into forgiveness and new life.

Whenever you and I sin, then, let us never lose hope. For Jesus is pleading for us, “Father, forgive them…” At the time of our death, Jesus longs to say to us, “This day you will be with me in paradise.” Every night before we sleep, let us say with Jesus, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.”