|
|
From Archbishop Donoghue
|
Good Friday |
Dear Friends in Christ, Yesterday, on Holy Thursday, we celebrated our Lord Jesus Christ’s final fellowship with His Apostles and Disciples. And in the course of that last evening before His death, our Lord gave us the two great Sacraments of our salvation, of our active participation in the redemption that is won for us this day, Good Friday. These Sacraments are Penance and Reconciliation, and the Sacrament of the Eucharist, our Communion with Christ, and through Him, with God the Father. And in our thanksgiving for these Sacraments, we have noted that they were not just given for our comfort and spiritual sustenance as individuals, but that, in a higher frame of reality, they are the two parts of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ – a sacrifice made for all creation, and for all time. This sacrifice was completed, perfected, and accepted today, on Good Friday, when our Lord suffered and died – when free of any sin, He gave up His Body and Blood, for the salvation of the world. This evening, as we proceed to venerate the Holy Cross upon which the Savior Jesus Christ died, and as we fortify our hearts and souls with His Body, given even on this day of His death, since we need Him today as much as any day – as we join in humble contemplation of our Lord, facing and suffering His own death, let us first confess our total dependence on this death which He offered for us. He is the Way, the only Way we can reach through our own deaths, and enter into the Kingdom He has established. Therefore, we embrace the event, we embrace the circumstances of His Passion – we venerate His Name, His Holy Cross – we kiss the wounds which He suffered, and which bled for us. We remember, we honor, and choose every year to be moved to the depths of our souls by these events surrounding the death of Jesus Christ. For we know, that deep I their mystery lies the mystery of our own redemption and the seed of our salvation. Now, having confessed as one People our total dependence on the all-winning death and love of our Savior Jesus Christ, let us open our beings to the grace with which He fills us, the grace of His own Holy Spirit, and let us be filled, once more, with the only hope worth having – that hope which passes through death and is victorious on the other side - the hope we share, made real in the glorious Resurrection of our Lord on Easter morning - His final triumph, for Himself and for us, over the first fruit of sin, which is death. As Holy Scripture proclaims: Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, that we too, might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. + |