- Feb 5, 2002
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COMMENTARY: Good Friday is a day in which Easter is active, not just anticipated.
Friedrich von Hügel’s friend was dying, and he told his friend about his young daughter in her last illness. She had been “wonderfully plucky and courageous, ‘grinning and bearing,’ a dear stoic. But then gradually she became, in this too, more and more sensitively Christian. The Cross became, not simply a fact, to bear somehow as patiently as we can, but a source and channel of help, of purification, and of humble power — of a permanent deepening, widening, sweetening of the soul.”
That’s a good Good Friday thought, and expresses an insight into the kind of day Good Friday is. Good Friday is a day in which Easter is active, not just anticipated.
Hügel was one of the major theologians of his time (he died in 1925 at the age of 72). He’s not remembered much now, which is sad, because he was wise man. He kept all the truths in balance, not letting one dominate the others, in a world that tends to split them apart and value one above the others. (I wrote about Hügel’s dialectical understanding of living in the world here.) He’s mainly known for his wonderful book Letters to a Niece, a book of spiritual and intellectual direction, and a massive scholarly work, The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in St. Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends.
To many of you the intimate connection of the two holy days will be obvious, but it was a truth I knew but didn’t see clearly. Like Hügel’s daughter, I had the Christianized stoic attitude down. Judging from conversations, others have the same challenge, some for the same reason.
Continued below.
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Friedrich von Hügel’s friend was dying, and he told his friend about his young daughter in her last illness. She had been “wonderfully plucky and courageous, ‘grinning and bearing,’ a dear stoic. But then gradually she became, in this too, more and more sensitively Christian. The Cross became, not simply a fact, to bear somehow as patiently as we can, but a source and channel of help, of purification, and of humble power — of a permanent deepening, widening, sweetening of the soul.”
That’s a good Good Friday thought, and expresses an insight into the kind of day Good Friday is. Good Friday is a day in which Easter is active, not just anticipated.
Hügel was one of the major theologians of his time (he died in 1925 at the age of 72). He’s not remembered much now, which is sad, because he was wise man. He kept all the truths in balance, not letting one dominate the others, in a world that tends to split them apart and value one above the others. (I wrote about Hügel’s dialectical understanding of living in the world here.) He’s mainly known for his wonderful book Letters to a Niece, a book of spiritual and intellectual direction, and a massive scholarly work, The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in St. Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends.
To many of you the intimate connection of the two holy days will be obvious, but it was a truth I knew but didn’t see clearly. Like Hügel’s daughter, I had the Christianized stoic attitude down. Judging from conversations, others have the same challenge, some for the same reason.
Continued below.
Good Friday: His Yoke Is Easy and His Burden Is Glorious
COMMENTARY: Good Friday is a day in which Easter is active, not just anticipated.
