Good Friday | Fr. Chad E. JarnaginGood Friday may seem counterintuitive since the day is a solemn one, observed with our fasting and somber reflections. Why is Good Friday called Good Friday? Good used to mean holy. Today, is Holy Friday. These days, we need some holiness to come near to us. So, let’s lean in… into Good Friday.Psalm 22 is the Psalm for today. It begins with My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It goes on to say, why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and my night, but I find no rest… yet, you are holy…We can find ourselves joining with the sufferings of Jesus during these days. Though none of us are on a cross, humanity is bearing a collective cross on this coronavirus… and if we listen, we can sense groaning… humanity’s cry… and yet… you are holy. There is an invitation of perspective to be had. At the beginning of human creation humans were not meant for death. This may be why death, tragedy, and pandemics are so traumatic, confusing, & unbearable for the human race.Suffering is a focal point which reveals the dimensions of where our humanity still attempts to reject this decay… until we are eventually overcome with it. His love & blood flowed mingled down from the cross that day - Seeing death in a new way, his followers scattered and fled.The invitation of Good Friday: to be reminded that there is perspective to be embraced. It is about us entering the difference between God and humanity… and touching it for a moment. - It’s like touching the sadness of humanity's insistence that we are in control, and have no need of help.Good Friday is a blend of faint Hosannas (a plea to be saved), suffering and pain… and humanity waiting in the tension… for it is finished… and we wait with the hope of unearthing our alleluias. A curiously empty day,As if the world's lifeHad gone underground.The April sunWarming the dry grassMakes pale spring promisesBut nothing comes to pass.AngerRelaxes into despairAs we remember our helplessness,Remember him hanging there.We have purchased the spicesBut they must wait for tomorrow.We shall keep todayFor emptiness and sorrow. -Elizabeth Rooney (1924-99)
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