Prof. Msgr. Vladimir Felzmann aka Father Vlad 

still working to help God make this World a better place 

“Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” 

In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus taught his apostles, the third petition is ‘ may your will be done’. On Good Friday, Jesus was going to do just that. He would drink the cup – take on board  the whole agony – as that was what His Father asked him to do.

Throughout his passion, Jesus showed how awesome was his courage, patience, generosity and moral strength. It made him – for me at least – immensely admirable and  lovable.

Whenever I pray the Our Father, I focus on the final word, “deliver us from evil”. As, with old age,  I have become more of a coward I pray that the pain – the agony – of evil experiences will not come my way. 

So far, the cup of my life has not been too harsh. All too many of my friends have not been so lucky – so blessed .

Perhaps tomorrow – the quiet Easter Saturday – you could read the passion and imagine being there - in the skin of Jesus. If you saw – or indeed want to see - The 2004 Passion of the Christ- co-written, co-produced, and directed by Mel Gibson –you will get  some idea of the horrors of that day; the final hours of Jesus before he died.

Padre Pio, a Capuchin friar, so identified with his beloved Jesus that he received the stigmata,the wounds of Christ's crucifixion, which appeared on his hands, feet, and side in 1918 and remained until his death in 1968.

He was in excellent company. St. Francis of Assisi – who died 1226, St. Catherine of Siena, who died 1380; St. Rita of Cascia, who died 1457; and  St. Faustina Kowalska, who died 1938; also bore the stigmata. If you have time, worth reading their biographies.