… When we experience any pain, disappointment, humiliation, misunderstanding, lack of recognition, fatigue, nervousness, fear, our own mistakes and failures, when we enter into difficult situations and encounter the anger of people, when even friends become enemies – in all such situations we can meet Jesus. In all of them, we can recognize him as the loving Bridegroom of our soul and, with joy at having known him, embrace him. (…) Perhaps we will be like a small child who cries because it has bumped itself but also smiles because its mother has embraced it. The bridegroom of the abandoned Jesus is not a sad person seeking pain, but a joyful and happy person because even in all pains he can find happiness from love. Love for the crucified and abandoned Jesus is not just a theme for meditation, but a way of life… He who said, “I will manifest myself to the one who loves me,” reveals himself in every face marked by pain. The choice of the Abandoned brings the assurance that even in the darkest night one will not be without God, for one will recognize him even in the very darkness. Immersion in the darkness of Good Friday in deep connection with Jesus brings the certainty of the victory of Easter morning, for the Abandoned and the Risen is the same. The night in which death died is full of light…
(Archbishop Jan Graubner, conclusion of the sermon on Ash Wednesday 2023)
