Good Friday Musings

This address, given by then Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 on Bl. John Duns Scotus at a  general audience, is worth reading:
"He says in his "Reportatio Parisiensis":  "To think that God would have given up such a task had Adam not sinned would be quite unreasonable! I say, therefore, that the fall was not the cause of Christ's predestination and that if no one had fallen, neither the angel nor man in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way" (in III Sent., d. 7, 4). This perhaps somewhat surprising thought crystallized because, in the opinion of Duns Scotus the Incarnation of the Son of God, planned from all eternity by God the Father at the level of love is the fulfilment of creation and enables every creature, in Christ and through Christ, to be filled with grace and to praise and glorify God in eternity. Although Duns Scotus was aware that in fact, because of original sin, Christ redeemed us with his Passion, Death and Resurrection, he reaffirmed that the Incarnation is the greatest and most beautiful work of the entire history of salvation, that it is not conditioned by any contingent fact but is God's original idea of ultimately uniting with himself the whole of creation, in the Person and Flesh of the Son." 

From an article by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM:
"Scotus taught that the Enfleshment of God had to proceed from God’s perfect love and God’s perfect and absolute freedom (John 1:1-18)..."

And from piece by Jack Wintz, OFM:
"It’s a beautiful, developing drama, a beauty whose end we cannot see. Starting with the first day of creation, the Word of God—the co-eternal mirror of the Father—has been slowly emerging down the ages. The Word has become visible in the Incarnation and will reach its full revelation when Jesus returns in glory on the last day."

Many people struggle with some of the interpretations given to the life, and particularly the death of Jesus on the cross. Theologians such as Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, and Athanasius, not to mention people from the Reformation tradition such as Calvin and Luther; have wrestled with the theology of this intervention by God in human affairs.  It is a good day to reflect on these mysteries, and to realize that the theology is far from monolithic, though nearly all agree on the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sakes.  Personally it is a day to exist in the mystery, and ponder it; and also to realize that I will not fully understand it in this life, while realizing that it proceeds from the perfect love of the Trinity.