Holy Week is a special week in the liturgical year, beginning with the waving of palm branches on Palm Sunday and ending with the singing of Alleluia on Easter Day. But between these two days of celebration, we commemorate the tragedy that Jesus had to endure in order ultimately to rise victorious from the grave and thereby bring about the redemption of all humanity. There are few weeks in which joy and suffering are so closely intertwined.
But let us focus our attention on the suffering that is the main theme of Holy Week and which we allow to penetrate us in a special way during the subdued liturgical celebration of Good Friday. On this day, we are indeed confronted with the most extreme form of suffering of someone who is totally unjustly tortured and must undergo crucifixion: "A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23). Regardless of the context, we can only rebel against such forms of suffering, in the same way that we are deeply outraged by the suffering caused by genocides and now by wars in so many places that cause so much misery. Christ dies every day in all those places where people are sacrificed to blind violence and mutual hatred.
