God has intended from the start that the invitation to grace and mercy is universal. Individuals may have been called, and certainly a single nation joined in a covenant with God. Good Friday expands not only the Covenant with Israel, but it reminds us of an older, deeper relationship: Creation.
The cross of Christ on Calvary stands beside the path of that admirable commercium, of that wonderful self-communication of God to (people), which also includes (our) call to share in the divine life by giving (ourselves), and with (ourselves) the whole visible world, to God, and like an adopted (child) to become a sharer in the truth and love which is in God and proceeds from God. It is precisely beside the path of (our) eternal election to the dignity of being an adopted child of God that there stands in history the cross of Christ, the only – begotten Son, who, as “light from light, true God from true God,”(The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed) came to give the final witness to the wonderful covenant of God with humanity, of God with (people)- every human being This covenant, as old as (humankind)- it goes back to the very mystery of creation – and afterwards many times renewed with one single chosen people, is equally the new and definitive covenant, which was established there on Calvary, and is not limited to a single people, to Israel, but is open to each and every individual.
Calvary was indeed for all–all who respond to the invitation.
Dives in Misericordia, the second encyclical of Pope John Paul II, is available online here, and is copyright © 1980 – Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Catholic Sensibility 