Friday of the Passion of the Lord, also known as Good Friday, is celebrated on the Friday before Easter and commemorates the end of Jesus’ life and the events that immediately preceded it.
This most solemn day is called good, a word that means holy.
Catholics spend this second day of the sacred Paschal Triduum meditating on Jesus’ Passion and Death, venerating the Cross, and praying for the salvation of the world.
The Lord’s Passion is celebrated in the afternoon which includes reading the entire account of the events from the Gospel of John.
Because Jesus died and was placed in the tomb on this day it is an aliturgical day, the only day of the year when Mass is not celebrated. Holy Communion is distributed from the Eucharist consecrated the day before.
As a day of penance, abstaining from meat and fasting are required by the Church on Good Friday.
Representing Jesus’ Passion and his Blood that He shed on the Cross to redeem man, the liturgical color of Good Friday is red.
A day of fasting and prayer:
After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.” There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, He said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, He handed over the spirit.
John 19: 28-30
Our own sins are part of the story:
Remembering the God who died for us:
The Church dares to call this day good:
God loved us all along:
Good Friday is marked by the Passion account and by contemplation of the Cross, in which the Father’s mercy is fully revealed. The liturgy has us pray in this way: “When we were lost and could not find the way to You, You loved us more than ever: Jesus, your Son, innocent and without sin, gave Himself into our hands and was nailed to a Cross”. So great is the emotion evoked by this mystery, that the Apostle Peter, writing to the faithful of Asia Minor, exclaimed: “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious Blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot”. Therefore, after proclaiming the Passion of the Lord, the Church puts the adoration of the Cross at the centre of the Good Friday liturgy, not as a symbol of death but as a source of authentic life. On this day, charged with spiritual emotion, the Cross of Christ is lifted up upon the world as a banner of hope for all who in faith welcome its mystery into their lives.
Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 8 April 1998
Recognizing what Jesus did on the Cross:
The Cross is how God wins back souls:
The link between pain and sin:
The redemption won by Christ consists in this, that He came “to give his life as a ransom for many”, that is, He “loved [his own] to the end”, so that they might be “ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [their] fathers”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 622
Where Jesus died and was buried:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Blending service and contemplation:
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