Stealing From A Priest...

Shamelessly stolen from Fr. David Hudgins' Blog The Great Commandment
(Rock on, Fr. Hudgins!)
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I've always loved this meditation for Good Friday...
At the very end of time, just before the last judgment, all the peoples who had ever lived were assembled together before the throne of God, and they began to talk to one another.
And they learned that despite their many differences, they all had one thing in common—they all knew what it meant to suffer.
And as they continued to talk, their conversation became a murmur—because regardless of which nation had been their home, or which religion had been their faith, or which century they had lived in, they all began to ask the same question—
If God is all powerful, and God is all good, then why has he allowed such evil to occur down through the centuries?
One by one, the groups stepped forward to speak.
1) There were a group of Jews there.
Some had been persecuted, others had died in the concentration camps.
And they asked, “Why did God allow this to happen?”
2) Next came a group of slaves.
Men and women who had been bought and sold like property, shackled and branded like cattle, families that had been torn apart and abused, and they asked “Why?”
3) Next came a group of refugees, countless numbers of homeless humanity, who had been driven from their lands, made to live in fear, with nowhere to rest their heads, and they said “Why?”
4) And countless hundreds of other groups appeared as well, the sick, the deaf, the lame, the blind, those who had been abused and persecuted, and each of them in their own turn asked, “Why did God allow such evil?”
And gathering together, they formed a delegation.
Each group would draw up a charge on which to indict Almighty God.
Before He could judge them, they would judge Him.
And this was their verdict—that God should know what it is like to live on this earth.
And that He should be given no special privileges because of His divinity to protect him.
There specific demands were as follows:
• “Let Him be born a Jew, that He might know what it is like to be a member of an oppressed race.
• Let Him be born poor, that He might know what it is like to live in the agony of continual need.
• Let Him know what it is like to have to flee his own homeland for the sake of his life.
• Let Him know the burden of hard labor.
• Let Him know what it feels like to be rejected by the ones you love.
• Let Him know what it is like to be betrayed by a friend, indicted on false charges, convicted by a prejudiced jury, sentenced by a corrupt and cowardly judge.
• Let Him know what it is like to be abandoned, alone, tortured.
• Let Him know what it is like to die in shame.”
And as each sentence was read, a roar of thunderous approval surged forth from a vindictive and broken humanity.
One by one the charges were read, and the raucous approval rose to fever pitch, and the whole of humanity turned towards the throne of God.
• And suddenly, all of heaven was split by a penitential silence...
Because where there had once been a throne, there was now only a cross.