Triduum Meditation: The Friday We Call Good

Last year I started the Triduum Mediation, and I and I started with Holy Thursday.  I intended to post on one day of the Triduum each year.  This year I will post a meditation on Good Friday.

As I said last year, the Pascal Triduum are the three days that lead to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. 

The Gospel reading for Good Friday is the entire Passion Narrative from the Gospel according to St. John, Jn 18:1-19:42.  I can’t post the entire two chapters, so I’ll take a portion that will have the most resonance to the embedded homilies.

 

So they took Jesus, and, carrying the cross himself, he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha.

There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle.

Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross.

It read,

“Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.”

Now many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.

So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate,

 “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews’.”

Pilate answered,

“What I have written, I have written.”

 

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier.

They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top down.

So they said to one another,

“Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be, “ in order that the passage of Scripture might be fulfilled that says:

            They divided my garments among them,

                        and for my vesture they cast lots.

This is what the soldiers did.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”

Then he said to the disciple,

“Behold, your mother.”

And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

 

After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled,

Jesus said, “I thirst.”

There was a vessel filled with common wine.

So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth.

When Jesus had taken the wine, he said,

“It is finished.”

And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.

 

Here all kneel and pause for a short time.

 

Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and that they be taken down.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may come to believe.  For this happened so that the Scripture passage might be fulfilled:

            Not a bone of it will be broken.

And again another passage says:

            They will look upon him whom they have pierced.

~Jn 19:17-37

I will go with Fr. Geoffrey Plant again because he offers so much information.  After he explains Good Friday, Fr. Geoffrey takes us through Jesus last seven words on the cross.  

It is with the fourth cup of the Passover and the death of the Lamb of God that completes the atonement.    I loved that ending from Fr. Geoffrey: “The Evangelists remind us that the life of a Christian is lived in the tension between ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Bishop Barron tells us on the horrific nature of the crucifixion.

And despite the horror of the cross, Christians embraced it!

 

Sunday Meditation: "When Jesus had taken the wine, he said,

“It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit."

 

This is too solemn a day for a hymn.  Indeed there was no music at Good Friday Mass today, just a Capella.  So another reflection is in due order, this time by two Dominican friars from Our Sunday Visitor, Frs. Patrick Briscoe and Vincent Bernhard O.P. who reflect on Good Friday traditions.

 

If you’re wondering what a “double genuflection” is, it’s not very mysterious.  I had just never heard it was called anything.  Here is a clip to demonstrate it.

 

So at Good Friday adoration of the wood of the cross, I had to try a double genuflection after hearing the friars talk about it.  Geez, I almost couldn’t get up with my aging knees.