In a few moments we will begin our Corpus Christi procession.  We will walk with the Lord through the streets. We do that to remind us that we always walk with him and he with us. He is with us when times are good; he is with us even more strongly when times are bad.

We call this a procession. There are many different kinds of procession. Some processions are protests; some are celebrations; some are pilgrimages. As we walk this evening, I will be thinking of a different procession.  I will be thinking of the cruel procession in which Jesus carried his cross to Calvary.   It was a procession full of sorrow as he made  his painful way to a horrible death.  A lot of hopes and beautiful memories were shattered – expectations that he would be a new leader to bring freedom and prosperity to Israel; the recollection of inspiring words and wonderful cures and of an extraordinary love for everyone especially the poor and the outcast and the children.  Then on Good Friday his followers saw that all of this was leading to an unimaginably cruel end.  This year our Corpus Christi procession is a reminder of that journey to Calvary and of the horrific death that followed.

In many ways that is where we find ourselves.  The expectations that we had from the Celtic Tiger have let us down and we are faced with job losses and very depressing economic forecasts.  The hopes that we had at the beginning of the millennium for a more peaceful and affluent world in the have been dashed by 9/11, by wars and by worries about climate change.  Most shockingly of all, we have been shaken by the accounts of what happened to many of the most vulnerable and marginalised children in our society. Instead of the love and encouragement that they so desperately needed, children who were already victims of poverty, or who had been orphaned, or who had suffered misfortune received harshness and cruelty and were even sexually abused.  And this happened in places which were meant be inspired by the Lord who told us that we would find him in the least of his brothers and sisters.

We have just celebrated the Resurrection in the Easter Season. But we should perhaps think of ourselves more often not as an Easter People but as a Good Friday people, walking with Jesus to Calvary.  We do, of course, believe in the Resurrection and know that we have received the beginnings of that new life in Baptism.  But the path to the life of the new creation passes through the Passion and Death.

We cannot simply rush to the resurrection.  We have to learn to suffer with him and to suffer with all those who suffer. In our procession we walk with Christ.  We also walk with all those who suffer.   The Prophet Isaiah tells us “Ours were the sufferings he was bearing ours were the sorrows he was carrying”.

In particular we have to learn to suffer with all who have been abused and especially to those who were abused when they were little children entrusted to the care of Church institutions.  There is a great temptation to see the survivors only as articulate adults who are rightly angry.  What we should always see is a terrified child whose trust was violated and whose whole life was damaged or destroyed.

We find it difficulty to imagine the life long scars that abuse can leave. But as we walk with Jesus who was betrayed and abandoned and beaten and mocked and cruelly killed we should be asking him to open our hearts so that we may be more aware of the deep suffering that exists in the lives of so many people and to understand the journey that all of us are called to make.  We walk in procession because our whole life is a journey – a journey to a glory beyond our imagining, but first of all a journey with Christ to our Calvary and our sharing in his death.

+Donal Murray