The Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski
April 10, 2009
Good Friday

To love that which is human, to hold it close to our bones, and to let it go….a thought shared some years ago by a priest in Washington, DC, at the funeral of a dear friend.  We come into this world and learn to love all that is humanly possible to love.  We come to treasure it, to marvel and delight in that which we love.  We hold it close to our hearts and our bones.  And, piece by piece, bit by bit, we say goodbye to it.  Slowly we literally let go of everything and everyone and take our last breath.

This is the journey of life.  This is how things are.  This is the common journey of every single one of us.  Today, we are reminded that the author of life took this same journey.  A journey that God’s very self entered into in the person of Jesus.  A life lived primarily to show us how…to show us how to love all that is human…to show us how to hold it close to our bones…and especially today…to show us how to let it go.

In the mid-80’s my spouse, Art, and I were buddies to a small child with AIDS.  We entered into Shawn’s life when he was three years old.  His moms wanted to make sure he had male companionship in his life.  We’d go over and play with him and give his foster moms a break.   I especially liked to play with his Peewee Herman doll, that would say, “I know you are but what am I” when you pulled the string in the back.

We also used to bring Shawn to church with us.  He loved going to our church.  In our former parish we had a large Tiffany window at the rear of the nave that featured a picture of Christ carrying his cross on the road to Calvary.  Shawn was fixated by this picture.  His moms said that he was drawn to any image of Jesus on the cross.  He was also drawn to a particular statue of the Pieta (Mary holding the corpse of her son).  He was especially drawn to the Pieta at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.  Somehow in his young mind Shawn forged a bond with this man carrying a cross.

As he became four Shawn knew that he was different from other kids.  He couldn’t walk and would crawl from place to place.  He often had oxygen tanks and took lots and lots of pills.  Somehow he knew that this man in the picture carrying his cross was different too.

The morning of September 20, 1991, Shawn died just two days short of his fifth birthday.  However, knowing the end was near, he had already celebrated being five.  He held the national record for the longest surviving child born with AIDS.  That morning, his moms held him, on the mattress they kept on the floor in the family room, during his dying moments…a Pieta scene for sure.  He looked up at the face of his mother, one tear trailed down his cheek and he said…Jesus now…and breathed his last.

It was finished.  All that he loved and held close to his bones, he surrendered…and let go.  He let go into God…Jesus now.

In this Passion according to John, Jesus lets go of his mother, the disciple he loves, all of it.  It is finished…He releases all of himself completely.  A letting go that is not into nothingness, but into fullness, a letting go where the emptiness of self is made complete…a complete surrender into complete wholeness…where all is God.

This is the great promise of today; that our letting go of all that we have loved…that letting go of all that we have held close to our bones…is a letting go into fullness…the complete emptiness of self is utterly and totally made whole and completed into the very source of ALL.  It is a letting go into the very heart of God.

The good news is …that we come into this world and love that which is human.  We live our life in such as way that we hold it close to our bones.  Then we release it.  We let go of all that we might be truly complete…made whole into the One who is All and in All…the one who by his life and death teaches us about our own life, our death, our destiny.  In our final surrender of self, in that moment of our final breath, may we too say with confidence “it is finished” and completely let go into God…go…into…Jesus….now.  Amen.

Copyright © 2009 by the Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski