April 18, 2025 // Bishop

Bishop Rhoades’ Homily for Good Friday: Victory Over Death

Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades

The following homily was given by Bishop Rhoades on Good Friday, April 18, at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend.

Today, Good Friday, the Church commemorates and contemplates the death of the Son of God on the cross. In the cross, we see an instrument of torture, but, more importantly, as Christians, in the cross we see the tree of life. At this liturgy, we will adore the cross on which hung the Savior of the world.

In the crucified Jesus who is the Son of God, death takes on new meaning and new purpose. It is redeemed and overcome. It becomes a passage to new life. As Jesus Himself taught, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

Photo by Derby Photography
Bishop Rhoades elevates the cross before it is adored by the faithful on Good Friday at St. Matthew Cathedral in South Bend in this 2023 photo.

In this homily, I would like to speak about the reality of death. This is something a lot of people don’t like to talk about or think about. After all, death is something “radically hostile and contrary to our natural vocation to life and happiness” (Pope Benedict XVI). It’s the most serious of our fears. Jesus understands this fear. In the second reading today from the letter to the Hebrews, the author wrote, “In the days when Christ was in the flesh, He offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save Him from death.” He’s writing about Jesus’ distress and agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus fully experienced human anguish in the face of death. And on the cross, He cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus faced death as we do, as something dark, as our enemy. But Jesus vanquished the enemy. He freely accepted death to do so, out of love for us. He was sustained on the cross by his steadfast trust in the Father, which made Him exclaim, as we prayed in the responsorial psalm, “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.”

Jesus transformed death. No human person could bear all the sins of the world on His shoulders, but the Son of God made man could do so, and He did, by His suffering and death on the cross. He freely submitted to His Father’s will. “The obedience of Jesus has transformed the curse of death into a blessing” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1009). We proclaim in the liturgy, “Dying He destroyed our death.” In a homily given on Good Friday, a bishop of the second century, St. Melito of Sardis exclaimed, “As His Spirit was not subject to death, Christ destroyed death which was destroying man.”

Jesus did not simply leave us an example of a heroic death. He overcame death by dying. And He didn’t do this just for Himself. He did it for us. As St. Paul wrote, He died for us all. The letter to the Hebrews says that is why He became man, so that “by the grace of God, He might taste death for everyone.” He entered into total solidarity with humanity and thus Jesus experienced the bitter reality of death, like all humans. The Son of God shared fully in our flesh and blood, as the letter to the Hebrews says, so “that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”

Now you might have a question at this point. If Jesus destroyed death, then why do we still have to die? We have to understand what it means to say that Jesus destroyed death. It would be an illusion to think that physical death doesn’t exist. It’s real. When St. Paul writes that Jesus destroyed death, the root meaning of the Greek verb “to destroy” has the nuance “to render inoperable or to disable.” So, death is still there, but it has no power, thanks to Christ’s victory over death. Because of Jesus, death is no longer the threat it once was. It no longer has power over Jesus, who rose from the dead, and it no longer has power over those who die with Him (cf. George Montague, Commentary on Second Timothy). We can now face death in a radically different way: with hope in eternal life, the hope of the resurrection. This is not to say that death is no longer difficult. But it should no longer fill us with dread and fear because it’s lost its sting. As St. Paul poetically wrote: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). Death no longer has the potency it once had. It’s lost its venom. It’s been transformed. If we live and die with Christ, we have no need to fear death. What we should fear is the death of our souls through mortal sin without repentance. Because then we exclude ourselves from the kingdom of life. But we should have the confidence of St. Paul that, if we die in Christ’s grace, we will also share in His resurrection. As St. Paul wrote to Timothy, “If we have died with Christ, we will also live with Him” (2 Tim 2:11). Of course, we’ve already died with Christ sacramentally through baptism. But we must remain in that grace of baptism. If we do, at the time we are approaching death, we can say with St. Francis of Assisi, “Praised be the Lord for our sister, bodily death.” Because of Jesus’ death, death is no longer the same. It has become our sister. With faith and trust in the Lord, we can say with St. Paul, “For to me life is Christ, and death is gain.”

I’ll never forget the image of St. John Paul on his last Good Friday, just eight days before he died. That was 20 years ago. Perhaps you remember it. He was watching on TV the Way of the Cross taking place at the Coliseum in Rome, where as pope he had always led every Good Friday night. At one point, someone put the crucifix on the Holy Father’s knee. When the 12th station was announced, “Jesus Dies on the Cross,” John Paul drew the crucifix to himself and embraced it. The love of Christ that is stronger than death comforted him. I’ll never forget that scene. I don’t think that anyone seeing that image could hold back the tears. The last audible words St. John Paul II uttered several hours before his death were: “Let me go to the house of the Father.” He uttered those words because he knew and believed that in his great love for us, Jesus rescued us from sin and death. St. John Paul II showed us – indeed, he showed the world – how to live, suffer, and die in the Lord.

When we approach death, may we be comforted by our faith that the love of Christ is stronger than death, that we are going to the Father’s house where Jesus has prepared a place for us. Jesus opened the door to that house when He died on the cross. The key to that house was His love, the love we celebrate today. That’s why we call today “Good” Friday.