Good Friday, 2023

Friday of the Passion of the Lord
Reflection by Mother Marie Julie, SCMC
(Isaiah 52:13-53:12 • Psalm 31 • Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 • John 18:1-19:42)
My Dear Good People,
As a child I could never understand why today was called ‘Good.’ I had my own name for it. I still do, though I now understand the history of the English phrase Good Friday and I know that today is good because we are freed from the evil one’s power by the death of Jesus. Still, for me, it will always be ‘Broken Heart Friday.’
What can we say about this day? Who can measure the love of God? What kind of God do we have, that He would die to save us from the very sins that caused Him to die? An unfathomable mystery. “By His wounds we have been healed” 1 Peter 2:24.
There is a sense of terror as we read the Passion stories in the Gospels today. Helplessness. Anguish. Christians have felt this ever since that first Heart Break Friday two thousand years ago when our Jesus was sold to His enemies, condemned to death and left to die on a windswept hill with only a few to stand by Him. For us who love Him we can only shake our heads in sorrow and promise Him to do everything in our power to give up sin and walk more faithfully in the way He shows us. Yet, as the mystery of this Friday brings us to our knees, we see that there is no anger or revenge in Jesus as He undergoes His passion and death. He was in control through it all, because He chose to do the Will of His Father in order to win us back to Himself from the clutches of Satan. His dying on the cross undid the sin of Adam. He opened His arms wide to embrace us, bowed His head toward us, and abandoned Himself to us in Love.
What is to be our response? Maybe this isn’t really a Broken Heart Friday after all. Maybe, at the end of the day, this is the Friday that gives us access to the most loving Heart that ever lived—and died—on earth. By His wounds we are healed, and now, for time and eternity, we belong to Him irrevocably, if we want to.
How could we say no to such Love?
            Holy Thursday is Love’s Great Day; Good Friday is Love’s Great Gift.
                                                   That, finally, makes it a Good Friday, doesn’t it?
God bless you.
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“With Mary, our lives continually proclaim the greatness of the Lord and the joy experienced in rendering service to Him.”

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