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Good Friday

4/16/2025

Good Friday.
The day of Our Lord’s suffering, passion, and death.
There are not words enough to do justice to the pain and suffering and glory of this day.

Barabbas was chosen to be released over Christ.
This choice was so that God's will would be carried out.
And the passion of Christ begins.

Christ was chained to a post and scourged.
His body brutally beaten with cruel weapons.
Weapons that sliced His sacred skin.
Weapons that when thrown upon His body took a hold of His flesh
and ripped it off of His body.
And He went through this because
HE.
LOVES.
YOU.

A crown of thorns was placed upon His head.
Actually, people believe that it was more of a cap of thorns.
The 2 inch thorns were forced into the sacred head of Our Lord.
Blood ran down His face joining with the rest of the blood that covered His body.
And He tolerated this all because
HE.
LOVES.
YOU.

Jesus carried the cross to Golgotha.
The heavy physical burden.
The wood rubbing against Christ’s skin, irritating it even more.
The dirty wood shoving splinters through Christ’s bloody ripped skin.
He falls on the gravel three times.
The gravel pushing up through the gaping wounds all over His body.
The burden of the cross falling down with our blessed Lord.
He carried His cross all because
HE.
LOVES.
YOU.

When Jesus reached the place called Skull,
He was rudely placed upon the cross.
Nails that are thought to have been 7-9 inches long were hammered to Jesus’ feet and His hands,
just below the wrist.
A block of wood was fastened to the cross under Christ’s feet which left His knees slightly bent.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
The nails driven through His hand and wrist area did not break a bone
but they are thought to have hit a major nerve that controlled movement
and feeling of the shoulders.
Because of the strain on the nerve,
Jesus lacked the ability to lift up His head to breathe.
To be able to breathe, Christ had to put force on His feet that were nailed onto the block of wood so that He could force the rest of His body up to breathe.
He went through this pain because
HE.
LOVES.
YOU.

The soldiers mocked Jesus and made fun of Him.
They told Him that He should save Himself.
And He could have.
He is God.
He can do anything.
But He chose to stay on the cross.
Obedience brought Him to the cross
It was love that kept Him there.
His love for YOU.
Love kept Him on the cross.
Staying on the cross showed extreme humility.
His love brought about humility.
He humbled Himself to death, even death on a cross because
HE.
LOVES.
YOU.

Jesus was crucified between two criminals.
One on His right.
One on His left.
One criminal joined in with the soldiers in mocking Jesus.
The other one repented of His sins and asked for Christ’s forgiveness.
Confession.
Right there.
On the Cross.
“Amen, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
He instituted the sacrament of confession and is gracious enough to forgive us of our sin because
HE.
LOVES.
YOU.

Mary standing at the foot of the cross.
Her pain inexpressible.
Her motherly desire to reach out and help her son was a desire like no other.
But She could do nothing.
It was in this moment that Her fiat was required to be a silent one.
Her yes had to be quiet.
She could only pray.
And then listen to Her son when He said,
“Woman, behold your son.”
He would not leave His mother alone.
He will not leave us alone simply because
HE.
LOVES.
YOU.

At about 3 o’clock,
The hour of mercy, in Jesus’ great pain and agony,
He cried out to His father,
“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
Jesus then proceeded knowing that His time was almost finished and said,
“I thirst.”
He was given some wine on a sprig of hyssop.
This completed the fourth cup of the Passover from the night before and Jesus said,
“It is finished.”
Thus, that line has many meanings.
The Passover was now finished.
Christ’s time on earth was almost finished.
The suffering on the cross was almost finished.
Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
“Father into Your hands I commend My spirit.”
Jesus bowed His head and died.
The earth quaked and people came to believe.
“Truly this was the Son of God!”
“This man was innocent beyond doubt.”
This man was innocent.
Yet He was obedient to the point of death on a cross so that we might live.
Truly He loved us.
Truly He loves us.
And truly He always will.
He gave His life for us.
The least we can do is live our lives for Him because
HE.
LOVES.
YOU.

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Simple Yet Profound - Holy Week

4/16/2025

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The simple truths are often the most profound. Too often we take these simple truths and try and compound them, as if in their simplicity they are somehow deficient. The simplest truth of all, and equally the most profound truth, is spoken through Scripture when John tells us that God is love.

God is love. Take a moment to hear those words as if for the first time. Maybe repeat the phrase to yourself a few times first emphasizing the word God, then emphasizing the word is and, finally, emphasizing the word love.

Think about this. God, this eternal, omniscient, omnipotent being can be “summed up” as this one “thing,” love. He is love. Since He is love, He must, by definition, by implication, love. He must love because He is love. Since He is love and must love, He must have always had an object of His love, someone to love. This someone would need to be someone who equally always was, is and will be. That would be His Son, Jesus. And this love between Father and Son is so real, so reciprocal, so alive that it always was, is and will be the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

Let’s take this a step further. In a sense, God cannot not love because He is love. Love is not only who He is, it is also what He does. God loves us no matter what. Nothing we do can separate us from the love of God. God even loves those souls in Hell. While they have chosen to not accept and, in fact, reject His love, He never stops loving them. Were God ever to stop loving them (or us) they would cease to exist for it is the very love of God that is the source of all life.

It is this love which triumphs over evil and conquers death, which forgives sin, which nourishes us in Eucharist. It is this love that endured the pain, suffering and even death on a cross, all for our sake. God is love is beyond simple; it is beyond profound. It is God, Himself.

This week as we focus on the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, keep in mind this truth, that God is love. Allow each Station of the Cross bring you to a realization of His never ending love for you. From the palms of Sunday, to the communion of Thursday, to the grief of Friday, to the desolation of Saturday, to the glory of Sunday remember that God is love and that God loves you!

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