Today is Good Friday. This is the day that Jesus Christ was put to death on a cross upon a hill just outside Jerusalem known as Calvary.
"Sisters and brothers, as we gaze upon and reverence this icon of the Lord’s death for our salvation, may we be moved to believe deeply in what the cross signifies and to be grateful to God for the gift of his Son’s ultimate sacrifice for us," says Bishop Earl Boyea in his Holy Week meditation for today, April 2. Below is Bishop Boyea’s text for today in full:
Bishop Boyea's Seven Days of Holy Week, Good Friday, April 2, 2021:
The fourth Suffering Servant Song is our first reading today (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), where we hear these words: “though he had done no wrong…the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity. If he gives his life as an offering for sin…the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him” (Isaiah 53:9-10). We are being led to gaze upon the cross of the Lord.
A text which has always amazed me is heard in the second reading today from the fifth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews: “In the days when Christ was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (5:7). He was heard! But he was not saved from death. We are being led to gaze upon the cross of the Lord.
This is not necessarily a day of mourning. Certainly, our reflections summon us to a certain sobriety. As we hear the Gospel account of the passion of the Lord, we are moved to acknowledge our own sinfulness, our unworthiness for the forgiveness offered us by the Father. Yet, our fasting, our prayers, our hunger all move us to seek that love which is beyond all love. We are being led to gaze upon the cross of the Lord.
We hear Jesus last words in John’s Gospel, “It is finished” (19:30) and are reminded of the beginning of the Last Supper the night before: “he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). As Pope Benedict has written: “He has truly gone right to the end, to the very limit and even beyond the limit. He has accomplished the utter fullness of love—he has given himself” (Jesus of Nazareth, 2:223). We are being led to gaze upon the cross of the Lord.
This is a day for solemn intercessions when all of us—priests, deacons, consecrated and laity—exercise our priestly obligation to pray for the needs of the Church and the world. As a priestly people we take seriously our responsibility to know the needs around us and to seek God’s grace in response to those needs. In the end, we know that all is grace. We are being led to gaze upon the cross of the Lord.
In 326 AD, Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, discovered the cross of the Lord in Jerusalem and ever since then we have had this occasion, this Good Friday, to gaze upon and adore the cross of the Lord.
Sisters and brothers, as we gaze upon and reverence this icon of the Lord’s death for our salvation, may we be moved to believe deeply in what the cross signifies and to be grateful to God for the gift of his Son’s ultimate sacrifice for us.