The Death That Gives Life To All

Hidden Graveyards

Scattered throughout my hometown of Cranston R.I., where I compose articles for the Catholic Bard, are little old mini cemeteries. They are very obscure and sometimes hardly noticeable unless you just happen to be looking at the right place at the right time. One such little cemetery is located right next to a gas station.

After pumping gas for you to travel about the state for some destitution, you could walk over and read these living landmarks of people who lived in this area many years ago and whose name on a gravestone is the only witness that they walked this earth. It’s a sobering reminder that someday our name on a gravestone will be the only indicator that we were ever here also.

Mr. Henry lived from 1911 – 1973 and his wife lived from 1911 – 1996. And here he is buried next to that gas station in a preserved historic site. When Kristin and I lived in Framingham Ma. we there was a bigger yet small graveyard on our street. The woman who lived in the house before us died in the bathtub. We watched Kristin’s grandfather die after eating Christmas dinner. We witness death all around us and we the living remember them. These grave markers remind us of their pilgrimage on this earth in which we are all journeying.

Jessie James and the Brady Bunch

On April 3, 1882, a man named Robert Ford killed American outlaw Jesse James. He is one of the few names of those who lived, whose life is remembered beyond his name. A man who robbed trains in the old west and sent others to the afterlife shooting them dead. This incident is captured in the novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (1983) by permanent deacon Ron Hansen. It was also made into a movie starring Brad Pitt as James and Casey Affleck as Ford.

Jessie James stands out as one of Bobby Brady’s heroes on the sitcom The Brady Bunch. In the show Bobby Brady’s father and mother were played by Robert Reed and Florence Henderson whose names are remembered because millions of people watched their fictional characters lives every week for several years. These two, are also part of the many names of those who join the endless names of those remembered and forgotten dead.

On Good Friday we remember one particular man who died. A man who died a horrific death by torture done by an oppressive government at the will of corrupt religious leaders. A man whose death gives life to all. He was a religious leader whose preaching and public actions such as healing men and women from deadly disease and disfigurement on a sacred holy day, when no work was to be done, won him the ire of Jewish leaders and who like many in power thought death was the proper way to get rid of someone who acted in a way contrary to the system of how things were supposed to be. This sentiment is still carried out by many people today regardless of race, religion, sex or creed.

This picture of Jesus is portrayed by actor Bela Lugosi in a stage play. He is famous for portraying the Living Dead Vampire in Dracula (1931).

Unlike Dracula, Jesus didn’t take blood to retain his immortal life, he shed his blood to give us eternal life.

His death was unlike any other death before or since. Because when the mighty power of Rome executed this peaceful rabbi named Jesus, they didn’t just execute a normal human being. They didn’t execute a human person at all, but a divine person who existed before his birth on this earth.

Christ’s humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God … Thus, everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject … Christ’s human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God … The individual characteristics of Christ’s body express the divine person of God’s Son … Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person… (CCC 466) USCCB

They Killed the Author of Life

But the author of life you killed. -Acts 3:15

They executed the very person who brought them all into existence by the very act of his will. The nails they used to nail him to a tree, were crafted out of the materials He brought into existence, not to mention the very wood itself that he was hung up0n. The Romans put the incarnate God to death. This is why the death of Jesus Christ we remember on Good Friday is a day we remember the death of God.

As if in answer to his wondering, Rex heard Jesus speak. What he said sent shivers up and down Rex’s trunk.
“Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.” Jesus voice was gentle and pleading. Rex was stunned!
“Don’t know what they’re doing? Forgive them? Are you going mad with Your pain? Nobody forgives people like this. Even trees don’t forgive such terrible cruelty. All creation knows we have to hate our enemies! Especially when they beat us and put us to death.”

Rex kept trying to reason with Jesus. After all, the Man on the Cross had every reason in the world to be angry.
“Listen, nobody ever forgives people like this,” he said again.
“Nobody, of course, except maybe G-O-D!” Suddenly Rex realized who this Man was. He began to feel weak. Rex began to stammer.
“Who-who did He call Father? I have heard talk of a Father in heaven-and a Son. Could this really be God? Can it be that this is Truly the Father’s Son?”
The very thought filled Rex with wonder.
“He-He’s touching me. He carried me. He is nailed to me. Why would God want to be so close to Me?”

Read it at Open Library or Kindle.

What His Death Brings

It was this death that brings meaning and hope to the people buried in that graveyard. It was this death in which gives the possibility that a murder like Jessie James could be forgiven of his murderous and unwholesome lifestyle. It was this death that allowed if he wanted to, an actor who portrayed Jesus and a vampire, to share in His divine life. It was this death that would allow the actors who portrayed Mr. and Mrs. Brady to live on past their deaths. The actor who played Mr. Brady shares a name with a bishop who was at my wedding. Bishop Robert Reed who is constantly on CatholicTV.

�� @BpRobertReed (Mar 29, 2026)
After these many weeks of Lent, the liturgy of the Church prepares the attentive faithful for participation in the Paschal mysteries.

Blessed is He who comes to save us!

Ann B Davis who played housemaid Alice on the show was a devout Christian and believed in the God whose death gave us life.

His Death Remembered in Church

It is the death remembered every time we walk into a Catholic church, as the re-presentation of his death is behind the alter on the wall for all the church goers to see as the priest represents his death during the worship service, so we can all be their mystically as he dies.

Crucifixion of Jesus at the winged triptych at the Church of the Teutonic Order in Vienna, Austria. Woodcarvings by an anonymous master; polychromy by Jan van Wavere, Mechelen, signed 1520. This altarpiece was originally made for St. Mary’s Church, Gdańsk, and came to Vienna in 1864.

We shall find Calvary renewed, re-enacted, re- presented, as we have seen, in the Mass. Calvary is one with the Mass, and the Mass is one with Calvary, for in both there is the same Priest and Victim.- Soon to be Beautified Fulton Sheen

Along the walls of most Catholic churches are the Stations of the Cross which trace the journey Jesus makes as he walks to his death on Mount Cavalry.

My Favorite Stations Of The Cross
A Transcript Of Stations Of The Cross
From The Diocese Of Cincinnati On Youtube.

There is a water font in which we dip our fingers into, where we bless ourselves in the sign of the cross, remembering this executed man as part of the uncreated, infinite Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirt, who created every person who has ever lived or will live and every person who will suffer death.

The water also represents our baptism, in which we were incorporated into Christ’s body. We were baptized in His death.

For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. -Romans 6:4

Dying in Christ

When we put our faith in Jesus Christ we die with Him. We die with the only death that will bring us life and cure us of death. This is why Jesus’ death is only death that really matters. It is the death that heals our wounded souls destroyed by sin. His death destroys death, evil, sin, separation from each other and mostly God.

Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory. –Memorial Acclamation

This is why it is a Good Friday as it brings about the ultimate good. It is good to remember that it is not His death alone that saves us and destroys our greatest enemy. If he was just another good preacher who told us to love one another and did some miraculous things he would be on the same level of remembrance as Jessie and the Bradys. The fact that he was God wouldn’t be too noticeable and wouldn’t mean anything. It was what happen 3 days later on Sunday morning that would make the difference.

But the author of life you killed, whom God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. -Acts 3:15

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
-1 Corinthians 15:12-19

How do you kill a God?

That is a mystery. But what happen after His death seems rather natural for man who is God. It’s not natural for us and was surprising for his lived ones who watched him beaten, scourged, crowned with thorns, nailed to a tree, and expire with blood and water flowing from his body. He was dead. His soul left his body and what remained was a corpse. He was sealed away in a tomb with a big heavy stone blocking anyone from coming in or out. Yet on Sunday morning the stone was rolled away, and Jesus was seen walking around. He showed his followers his hands and feet as a mark he had died. But unlike all the other dead people who stay buried in their tombs, he was resurrected from the dead. We who die with Christ will rise with Christ. This is why Good Friday matters. This is why Easter matters. It is the death and resurrection of Jesus that will allow us to be resurrected from our deaths. This is why his death gives us life.

Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory. –Memorial Acclamation