Posted on 04/10/2009 9:54:57 AM PDT by tcg
I served as Deacon at the solemn “Celebration of the Lords Passion”. I had just carried the Cross into the waiting assembly chanting three times: “This is the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Savior of the world,” at which the assembly responded, “Come Let us worship.”
This frail couple approached. The wife could barely walk without her husband’s loving firm support. As they drew closer, I could see that the husband’s face was filled with deep wrinkles, the kind of love lines etched in the face from suffering borne with grace. His head was covered with unkempt white hair and framed with a coarse white beard. His eyes were filled with pure love for his beloved wife whom he assisted so tenderly as she came forward to venerate the Holy Cross.Her eyes were distant and her face was beautiful, wrinkled but profoundly feminine, revealing a landscape of embedded sorrows and joys, a full life now coming to its winter. As she drew closer, I could tell that the lines in her face had been accentuated by the progressive ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.
He stooped to kiss the cross and in so doing moved his steady hands and his face momentarily away from her gaze. She looked at first afraid, because his face had left her view for a brief moment. I noticed as he came back into her view that a serene look filled her eyes. She seemed to be asking her beloved a simple question with her expression “What now?” He directed her head toward the base of the Cross and in so doing he caught my eyes with his own...
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
A little anecdote to share.
At work yesterday, I mentioned I was taking Good Friday off. Two co-workers asked me why, and the first one murmured, “I guess it’s a Catholic thing.” I was puzzled, and explained, “There’s no Easter Sunday without Good Friday.”
The second one replied, “We just celebrate Easter.”
One had been raised Mormon (but had left that church). The first one, I don’t know about.
It always surfaces with government micro-management.
“We just celebrate Easter.”
&&&
Sadly, that probably just means that they have Easter baskets for their kids and maybe get together for supper with relatives..
Every Friday afternoon we were herded into a dank and dark church and then commanded to “meditate” upon horrific examples of torture and abuse, complete with very graphic statues depicting the events. As Lent moved into spring, the hot and humid weather of Philadelphia added to discomfort of the unairconditioned church.
Geeze! I would call this emotional child abuse! If children were exposed to similar torture ( of a different person) in a film, photos, or statues, the child protection workers would be making arrests.
Personally, I am a faithful Christian, but I prefer to focus on the Ressurection. Good Friday? I want nothing to do with it.
I suppose Peter and the other Apostles had the same feeling at the time...but I think at Pentecost they had a change of heart.
I hope you have had your Pentecost?
God Bless!
For good reason.
Sounds like you're a cherry picker.
Good Friday? I want nothing to do with it.
You should have paid better attention when you were a student.
"But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness: But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." 1 Corinthians 1:23-24
"For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until He come." 1 Corinthians 11:26
You should have paid better attention when you were a student.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A child should be repeatedly subjected and pay **better attention** to graphic ritualized torture?
I don’t think so.
I call it child abuse.
Then you want nothing to do with Christ.
“Personally, I am a faithful Christian, but I prefer to focus on the Ressurection. Good Friday? I want nothing to do with it.”
The Most Holy Theotokos didn’t want to stand and watch her beloved son hang, bleeding on a cross, until the soldier lanced Him and He soon sighed and “gave up the ghost”. But she didn’t run away and hide, wt. As Christians, we can’t hide from what happened on Great Friday nearly two millenia ago. Next Friday night, for me, I, the chief among sinners, get to stand at the tomb of Christ and chant this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeP70fSe3Io
Your comment sadly reflects so much about Western culture.
Your comment sadly reflects so much about Western culture.
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It reflects a normal reaction to be abused as a child by nuns.
***Personally, I am a faithful Christian, but I prefer to focus on the Ressurection. Good Friday? I want nothing to do with it.***
You cannot have one without the other. Jesus cannot be Resurrected if He did not suffer His Passion. We as Christians cannot be granted salvation if He did not take all the sins of world upon Himself.
You reject Salvation?
Wow.
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I too went to Catholic parochial school. I was told in the first grade that unless one submitted to the Pope of Rome, it was off to hell with you. I ran home crying because I thought my Greek grandparents were doomed. Later we were told that if we "missed Mass" and got run over on the way to school on Monday, off to hell with you. I went to the Divine Liturgy so I had nightmares for a few weeks. The list of what the Sisters of Mercy pulled goes on. But it never lead me to reject The Church or to refuse to observe the feasts of the Liturgical Year. What it lead me to do is to reject and ultimately ignore what "some silly nun said", as I was advised by an very old, very kind Irish monsignor, who, BTW, loved "Holy Ortodoxy and the Holy Ortodox people", as he called it and us.
Its time to put those childhood traumas away, wt.
I will pray that you find the wisdom to understand what Good Friday is all about.
Blessings to you.
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