Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap.
(Excerpt from the sermon delivered by Father Cantalamessa during the papal liturgy at St. Peter's in Rome on Good Friday in 1986. For information, we note that a collection of 16 Good Friday sermons from 1980–1995 was published by the Carmelite Publishing House under the title We Preach Christ Crucified.)
“Lord” is a divine name that directly concerns us. God was “God” and “Father” before the world, angels, and people existed, but He was not yet “Lord.” He becomes Lord, Dominus, only at the moment when there are beings to whom He “rules” and who freely accept this “rulership.” In the Holy Trinity, there are no “lords” because there are no servants, but all are equal. It is we who, in a certain sense, make God “Lord”! This divine lordship, shattered by sin, was restored by the obedience of Christ, the new Adam. God became Lord again in Christ for an even stronger reason: through creation and through redemption. God took power from the cross! Regnavit a ligno Deus. “For this very reason Christ died and rose to life, so that He might be the Lord of the dead and the living” (Romans 14:9).
The objective power of the sentence “Jesus is Lord” lies in the fact that it makes history present. It is the conclusion of two fundamental events. Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead for our justification: Therefore, Jesus is Lord! The events that prepared this almost culminated in this conclusion and are now present and effective in it when proclaimed with faith: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
There are two fundamental ways to connect with the events of salvation: sacrament and word. We are now speaking of the way in which the word operates, and that most essential word is the kerygma. Christianity has many examples and patterns of how the experience of the divine was lived. Orthodox spirituality emphasizes experiencing God in “mysteries,” in the prayer of the heart… Western spirituality emphasizes the experience of God in contemplation, when one withdraws within oneself and thoughts rise above things and oneself… In general, there are many “ways of the mind to God” (a reference to the treatise of St. Bonaventure of the same name – translator's note). However, the word of God reveals one way that opened the divine horizon to the first Christian generations. It was not an extraordinary path reserved only for a few privileged individuals. It was accessible to all people of sincere heart – both believers and those seeking faith. It does not ascend through steps of contemplation, but through the divine events of salvation. It is born not from silence, but from listening. This is the way of the kerygma: “Jesus Christ died! Jesus Christ rose! Jesus Christ is Lord!”
This experience may have been felt by the first Christians when they called out during worship: Maranatha! This cry had a dual meaning depending on how it was spoken: “Come, Lord!” or “The Lord is here.” It could express the longing for Christ's return or an enthusiastic response to Christ’s “liturgical epiphany,” that is, to His revelation in the praying assembly.
This sense of the presence of the risen Lord is a kind of inner illumination that sometimes changes the entire mental state of the person who receives it. It resembles what happened during the revelations of the Risen One to the disciples. One day after Easter, the apostles were busy fishing on the Sea of Tiberias. Then a man appeared on the shore who spoke to them from a distance. Everything was normal up to a certain point: They complained that they caught nothing, as fishermen often do. But in the heart of one of them – the disciple whom Jesus loved – a sudden light shone. He recognized him and shouted, “It is the Lord!” (John 21:7). Then everything suddenly changed on the boat.
Now we understand why St. Paul says that “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). Just as the bread becomes the living body of Christ on the altar by the power of the Holy Spirit, who descends upon it, so this word also becomes “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12) by the power of the Holy Spirit working within it. It is an event of grace that we can prepare for, which we can assist, and after which we can long for, but we cannot invoke it by ourselves. Usually, we do not notice it at the moment it occurs, but only after it has happened, and sometimes years later. At this moment, it could happen to someone present here that what happened in the heart of the beloved disciple at the Sea of Tiberias: that they would “recognize” the Lord.
