So many times we think of Good Friday in terms of all the stories we heard as children – if we were fortunate enough to be brought up in the Church. The stories of Jesus’ Betrayal, Passion, Death and Resurrection, so familar to us, can lose their ability to impact us and humble us if we allow ourselves to think that suffering and death and martyrdom are just quaint stories cooked up by the early Church to steady the nerves and faith of the faithful. The fact is, the shadow of the Cross still looms large two thousand years later: whether you’re a nun raped and executed in Liberia, a bishop assassinated in Guatemala, or a Christian community in Laos forced to relocate their village, the Cross is more than just a concept, or dogma, or a subject for theological debate.

Consider the martyrdom of Fr. Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest who was shot dead while he knelt down to pray shortly before celebrating Mass in the little Catholic church he served in the town of Trabzon, Turkey back in 2006. While searching around for information about Fr. Santoro, I came upon this link – a marvelous testimony to a humble and martyred servant of Jesus Christ:

…I saw him two months ago in Iskenderun, at the see of the apostolic vicariate of Anatolia. It was our monthly retreat and we talked about the cross. He told us: ““Often I ask myself: What am I doing here? And the words of John the Baptist would come to mind. ‘‘And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us’’. I live among these people so that Jesus can live among them through me. In the Middle East, Satan continues to destroy, remembering and loyal to the past. As it was at the time of Jesus, silence, humility, the simple life, acts of faith, miracles of charity, clear and defenceless witness, and the conscious offering of one’’s life can rehabilitate the Middle East.””

After a long pause, he took off his glasses letting them hang around his neck and spoke again, calmly, as if talking to himself: “I am convinced that in the end there are no two ways, only one way that leads to light through darkness, to life through the bitterness of death. Only by offering one’s flesh is salvation possible. The evil that stalks the world must be borne and pain must be shared till the end in one’’s own flesh as Jesus did.” Not one word more, not one less.

After he spoke silence fell on the room. Then he looked at his watch and got up quickly, apologised, picked up his small suitcase and left the room almost running. He didn’’t want to miss the plane that would take him back to his Trabzon.

There he was kneeling yesterday, praying in his church. There a bullet pierced his heart.

On this Good Friday we remember that the Son of God “went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified”. And we pray “that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other that the way of life and peace”. So goes the traditional Collect of the Day for Monday of Holy Week. Let it be for all of us a prayer we can take to heart and mind, not just for this most holy of days, but for all our days.

After all, that’s what the Way of the Cross is all about.