Good Friday

So...

I'm just back from the Good Friday service. I forgot how long it is (about an hour and twenty minutes, and that in a congregation of 30), due to the three-person account of the Passion, and the extra-long intercessions (sung intercession & responce, silence, and sung prayer).

The funny thing is that I remember thinking, last year, how short Good Friday's service seemed.

Good Friday is the only day of the year a priest does not (when healthy and able to do so) offer a Mass, for the simple reason that it's the only day of the year when Mass is not a part of the scheme. Good Friday is the most solemn day of the year, a day when the altar is stripped, the tabernacle is empty, and the cross is omnipresent (to possibly coin a term).

Catholics are often accused by Protestants, in regards to the presence of the corpus on the crucifix, of not remembering that Jesus has risen, that he's no longer on the Cross. Well... maybe they have a point, and maybe they don't... but what's the point of wearing a cross at all, in that case?

The cross is central to the Resurrection. You cannot have one without the other. Without the death, there could be no Resurrection, and no salvation from sins. Remembering the death on the cross does not mean that we have forgotten the Resurrection, but that we remember what it cost--we remember what great love we were shown.

Really, without the cross, what love would the Resurrection demonstrate? If Jesus had died in His sleep, what then? Well, it just doesn't read the same to say that "God loved us so much He took the form of a man, lived a long, happy, and sinless life, and died in His sleep. And then rose again for the forgiveness of sins."

Quite apart from possibly not actually having any salvific benefit, such a death does not demonstrate the OVERWHELMING love of God, of Jesus, for His people. It is the greatest love that a man can have, said Jesus, to die for his friends. Well, not only did Jesus die for those of us who've decided we want to be His friends, but for everyone. And He did so in one of the most painful ways possible. There can be no denying that love.

And so a Catholic has a crucifix with a corpus. And so we have Good Friday; to remember with great love God has loved us.

"Behold, behold, the wood of the cross, on which is hung our salvation. Oh come, let us adore."