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The Most Good of Fridays

Friday, April 18, 2014

I don't want to say much today because it is Good Friday and it's currently 1:19 p.m. - between the hours of Jesus's crucifixion at noon and his death at 3 p.m.

I do want to say that Good Friday just hits my heart. I cry easily (I'm sensitive), but Good Friday just takes it to another level. I'm going to the service at church tonight with my mom, and I know I'll need tissues. I have been this way my whole life, and it's really very hard for me to understand not feeling so weighted down by the gravity of today. If you really stop and think, well ... it's just too much to bear. It really is. The weight of our sin and the enormity of what Christ did for us.

I think this picture really sums it up:

Pope Francis at the beginning of the Good Friday service in Rome this evening.

I don't believe I have ever attended a Protestant Good Friday service so this may happen there too, but in the Catholic Church, the priests begin the service this way, lying prostrate at the foot of the cross. Yeah I'm pretty much crying as I write this. Toward the end of the service we all go forward to kiss the foot of the cross. It's just almost too much for my heart to bear. It is just the most beautiful, sad, reverent and heart-hitting service.

A few years ago, Father Jim gave a wonderful homily (as he always does). But one thing stood out and has always stayed with me. He was talking about what Jesus did for us and God's unending mercy. He said:

We will do things wrong, and we'll go to God and say "God, I promise I'll change. I want you to love me." But what God says is, "No. I will love you so you will want to change."

I will love you so you will want to change. 

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