Good Friday

Today is Good Friday, the 2 April.

The choir of Westminster Cathedral sing Allegri’s Miserere mei.  ‘Have mercy on me God, in your kindness, in your compassion, blot out my offence.’

Our prayer today will be a little different… we will be reflecting on a series of shorter verses and passages from the Gospel of John (John 18:1-19:42). We encourage you to place yourself in each scene, noticing where your attention is drawn and where you are stirred in your prayer…

On Good Friday we recall the final events in the life of Jesus . . . his arrest in the garden made possibly by Judas . . . being questioned by the religious authorities and then by Pilate . . . the crowd calling for the release of Barabbas rather than him . . . being scourged, mocked, beaten and condemned to be crucified . . .

“They then took charge of Jesus, and carrying his own cross he went out to the Place of the Skull or, as it is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified him . . .”

Some of those who loved him watched this torture

“. . . standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” 

His disciple John was also there . . . If you are able to, stand with them for a while, watching Jesus . . . His final act is to say:

“‘It is finished’.  Then he bowed his head and gave up the spirit.” 

“Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.”

Note the place where his body is lain: the garden, the tomb, the stone across its entrance.  Stay there a while.

We adore you O Christ and we bless you

because by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.