Good Friday

When I was a little girl I could never understand why this Holy Day would be called Good Friday, I always thought it should be called Bad Friday (but I didn’t dare ask the nuns about it). I remember asking my Mom about it and she said this Day is also referred to as Black Friday, and I think that appeased me because I knew that when someone died people were sad and everyone wore black, and since I felt there was nothing good about the Suffering and Death of Jesus, Black Friday was so much more acceptable to me than Good Friday. Of course, as I grew older I realized just how amazingly wonderful Good Friday was for my soul and for my relationship with God. But it wasn’t until much, much later that I realized that the Sacrificial Death of Jesus was not only the Heart of my Faith but that the Sacrificial Death of Jesus was also the Personification of God’s Love for us. Jesus’ Life, His Suffering, His Death, and His Resurrection Are All The Heart of God.

I never really contemplated the Suffering Father when I reflected on the Suffering Son, I never thought of Good Friday with the idea of a Father’s Suffering in mind.
I always thought of Jesus’ Death in terms of what God The Son Suffered for us, and I also thought about the suffering of the Blessed Mother (I remember some friends and relatives saying they never thought about the misery Mary suffered when she witnessed her Son Suffer until they saw Mel Gibson’s movie Passion, I on the other hand was well aware of Mary’s broken-hearted anguish because I was raised on the Sorrowful Mother as I was raised in a Catholic home and was educated in Catholic schools. I was always able to think of the Passion of Christ in terms of a mother’s heartache too), but never did I have a thought in mind of what God The Father Suffered in Sacrificing His Only Son. I really never before dwelled on a Father’s Heartache in seeing His Son Suffer. St. Paul tells us that God The Father made Jesus to be sin, He Who knew no sin was made to be sin itself (2 Corinthians 5:21). Sin, which is our separation from God. God our Father Made His Only Begotten Son sin itself. Jesus didn’t just take on our sins, Jesus Became our sins. And God did that for us. God’s Only Son was made to be that which separated us from God, and then it was He Who Reunited us with God. To see the Depth of God’s Love for us we need only look at The Suffering Servant on the Cross.
I read recently that Good Friday originated as God’s Friday and I find that so appropriate. Today as I contemplate the Sacrificial Lamb I will also reflect on the fact that our Heavenly Father Had Such A Deep Love and Such An Intense Desire for a relationship with us that He Himself Would Sacrifice So Dearly for us.


PRAYER BEFORE A CRUCIFIX

Look down upon me, Good and Gentle Jesus,
while before Your Face I humbly kneel and,
with burning soul,
pray and beseech You
to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments
of faith, hope and charity;
true contrition for my sins,
and a firm purpose of amendment.

While I contemplate,
with great love and tender pity,
Your five most precious wounds,
pondering over them within me
and calling to mind the words which David,
Your prophet, said of You, my Jesus:

"They have pierced My hands and My feet,
they have numbered all My bones. Amen.


PRAYER TO OUR SORROWFUL MOTHER

Mother Mary, full of sorrows, the Crucified is with thee; thou art pitiable amongst women, and pitiable is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of the Crucified, implore for us, the crucifiers of thy Son, tears of contrition, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.