Reproaches summon us to respond to Passion of Christ

During the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday, which follows the Intercessions and Collection, the Choirs traditionally sing the Reproaches. Some parishes, however, have replaced the Reproaches with another hymn because they felt that these were anti-Semitic.  Truth be told, the early history of our Church was marked by anti-Semitism because the Christians believed that the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ Passion and Death.  It was only during the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s, that the notion of the Jews’ being “Christ-killers” was rescinded.  The Jewish authorities demanded his death, some of the crowd outside the Pretorium demanded his death, the Roman soldiers carried out his Crucifixion.  But all of us, humans, are culpable of putting Jesus to death.

Do you think that we have problems in the Church today?  Back in the first two centuries, there was tension between the Aramaic speaking Jewish Christians from Judea, the Greek speaking Jewish-Christians from the “diaspora” of Asia Minor (present day Turkey) and the pagan or Gentile converts to Christianity.  Thus, we find a Christendom marked by inner-hostility, animus, and bias and yes, even some anti-Semitism.  

The Reproaches of the Passion, an ancient hymn of the early Church are a series of lamentations from the Old Testament about the ingratitude of the Jewish people, which leads up to the Passion of the Our Lord.  They are twelve accusations which begin with a prophetic expression of grief, each of which is taken from Chapter 6 of the Prophet Micah.

The Church sings these during the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday.  Following the completion of the Passion, the gratitude of the Church turns to the Cross, that revolting instrument of torture which became the noble instrument of our Redemption.  The Reproaches represent the striking contrast between the innocence of Our Lord and the ingratitude and guilt of the Jewish people.  But we, my friends, are descendants of the Jews.  Some might call us “Jews of the New Israel,” inasmuch as we are heirs of the new humanity of the Redeemed.

The Reproaches of the Passion paint our Lord questioning His people, reminding them of the benefits God gave them, and asking them why they inflicted such anguish on Him.  There are twelve Reproaches that are chanted in the same plain-song melody.  When we hear the Reproaches, we should not just perceive these as past historical facts from the Old Testament evoked by the liturgy of the Church.  Instead, we should apply Jesus’ lamentations to the present and to ourselves.  Our piety should imagine Our Lord in each step of His Passion – from the Agony in the Garden, to the Scourging, from the Crowning with Thorns, to Carrying of the Cross, from the Crucifixion to his Death–with genuine remorse and sorrow. 
We should meditate on these moments as if Jesus were present before each of us, “Jews of the New Israel,” evoking a desire within us to ‘fess up, to own up to our sins, without trying to justify these or blame others for these.  We should imagine Jesus asking each one of us those poignant questions which He addressed to the Chosen People.

It is common knowledge that Divine Providence gives special graces for each commemoration of the Church.  During Holy Week, there are super-abundant graces that Christ mediates to us through these sacred liturgies, so that we might unite ourselves more intimately to Him.  We should open our souls for those graces, in cadence with each vignette of the Passion, in particular, those moments when we can identify with Jesus’ pain personally.

The normal response to these meditations should be remorse for our sins, not a disturbed sorrow which leads to despair, such as that of Judas, but the peaceful repentance that converted Peter, a tranquil yet honest look within which elicits an apology to Jesus for our sins.

Good Friday is the day to reflect on the gifts which we have received, graces won for us at so dear a cost by Jesus, and our past ingratitude in response to these.  “If we haven’t done so during Lent, should we not make reparation for the evil we have done today?  Should we not shift our lives in another direction in order to unite ourselves personally to our Savior and live out the Way of the Lord Jesus?”  Yes!   We should ask for this transformation with confidence.  Why?  Because if a sinner like the good thief who, never expressed remorse until the hour of his death, was heard by Jesus who, in his feelings of forsakenness and physical pain, assured this criminal that he would be with our Lord that day in Paradise, just imagine what the same Jesus, our Glorified Savior, has in store for each of us. 

Father Comandini serves as diocesan coordinator of the Office for Ongoing Faith Formation.