A reflection for the first station of the Way of the Cross, for Good Friday 2016, when the procession begins at the shrine of el Tiradito in Tucson:
This is the shrine of el Tiradito, the discarded one: from tirar, to throw away, or discard. The discarded one this
shrine recalls, as the story is told, was a man caught in the act of adultery. He died un-shriven, that is, a sinner,
un-forgiven and un-absolved. So he was not buried in consecrated ground; he was
discarded.
Today we remember one who took on himself the fate of a
discarded one, an outcast – cast out not so much by his own people but by a
brutal official system of domination, and its local collaborators. And yet the
road he walked led to the resurrection. For there are no outcasts.
There are no outcasts when God is there. There are no
outcasts when God’s people are present to witness to the truth – the truth that
will make you free. The truth that God himself is on the side of the discarded
ones, the ones the powers that be seek to cast out, to expunge from society,
from our city, from life.
Through taking on himself the impact of the system of
oppression, Jesus showed us the way to life. He gave us hope. There are no
outcasts.
Let us walk with him today.
