The judge condemns the accused and, at the same time, declares him innocent.

On a Friday like this, Jesus offers His life for us, and the focus is placed, in a very special way, on the gestures and words of Jesus. Gestures that are expressed in His silence and His goodness, gestures that are made concrete in the way He accepts to die and give His life for each one of us.

After Jesus' solemn entry into Jerusalem, the crowd cries out for His crucifixion. And Jesus dies, gives His life to save us, to redeem us from our sins.

It is easy for us to think that the Jews were the reason for Jesus’ condemnation. However, the truth is that Jesus' condemnation happens because of the paths of our sin, of our spiritual illness, of our disobedience to God.

It is exactly and particularly this disobedience that brings Jesus to trial so that a sentence may be given to Him. And Jesus accepts being condemned to death, He allows Himself to be killed, because He loves us infinitely.

We see that in Jesus, when He is condemned to death, the greatest injustice ever seen in any court in the world occurs. The judge condemns the accused and, at the same time, declares him innocent.

And Jesus accepts that sentence in a state of silence. Not a silence based on the crimes with which He is falsely accused by some members of the old covenant, but a silence accepted and offered to the Father in reparation for our faults, for which He chose to offer Himself completely to redeem us.

I think that, in this way, we can reflect today that, in the case against Jesus, we are all present. I remember how, in Braga, Portugal, at the Shrine of Bom Jesus do Monte, after more than 500 baroque stairs on the terrace next to the basilica’s door, there are several statues arranged as a courtroom: those who accuse and those who defend.

However, what I like most is precisely the fact that there, in the center, there is also space for us.

That in the moments when we are carried away by the difficulties of life, we may imitate Our Lord, trust in God who is Love, and respond to Him with the silence of our hearts.

May the "Virgin of the Encounter" on the way to Calvary encourage and strengthen us so that our response may also be a total YES of coherence and adherence to God's will.