Good Friday

 

A reflection:

"CHRIST broke his mysterious body and gave it to his disciples at the Supper without explaining at that time what the breaking and giving would mean.  There was no need, the facts would presently make it clear.  What, then, was done to this body?  It was stripped, scourged, and nailed to a cross: stripped of all dignity and all possession, scourged with the stroke of penal justice, and nailed up like a dead thing while it was still alive.  The body you receive in this sacrament accomplished its purpose by nailing to a tree.  You are to become this body, you are to be nailed: nailed to Christ’s sacrificial will.  The nails that hold you are God’s commandments, your rules of life, prayers, confessions, communions regularly observed.  Let us honour the nails for Christ’s sake, and pray that by the virtue of his passion they may hold fast." (Austin Farrer, Crown of the Year)

A prayer:

Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the Cross; who now liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

God bless you all,

LSP

Palm Sunday

 

Palm Sunday, what a Feast of seemingly opposite extremes. On the one hand, our hosannas and palms prefigure the victory and alleluias of Easter. On the other, we're confronted with the barred fangs iniquity of the Passion, and what iniquity it is. The murderous hatred of the Chief Priests, the weakness of Pilate, the derision of Herod and his court, the torturous savagery of the soldiers and the betrayal of Judas; even of Peter whose rock dissolves to quicksand in the heat of the question.

Joy and suffering, good and evil, darkness and light, God versus Satan. It seems, as Christ dies on Calvary, on the place of a skull, Golgotha, that Satan has won. But no, the perfect sacrifice has been sent, ite missa est, and is found acceptable by the Father for the remission of sin. Accordingly, Christ rises, victorious, on the third day; he has broken the power of death, sin and Hell itself. The palms of his entry into the holy city didn't lie. But that's for the future.

Today he must go to the Cross to confront evil and defeat it. He invites us to do the same, to take up our cross and follow him, both daily and this week especially. To what end? That in the deliberate, conscious, thoroughgoing rejection of sin and concomitant conversion of heart, mind and soul we not only find union with our Lord's sacrifice but also a share in his risen life, in his victory over death. With that, today's hosannas turn to the jubilant exultation of Easter, Alleluia! He is risen!

Again, this is liturgically over the horizon, so in the meanwhile a prayer:

Almighty and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the Cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also be made partakers in his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

 

God bless you all,

LSP