Three quick thoughts for Good Friday:
1. I don’t think I can legally use the image, so please click here. I hate fasting days. But if this picture doesn’t sock you in the stomach and make you rethink your entire life, I don’t know what will.
2. Our deacon gave a short homily with a powerful punch on our April-Fools-Day Palm Sunday that encapsulated everything today is about. It closed with these words:
Today, in this 21st century ‘world of ironies’, where:
Death is called ‘Choice’ and
Vengeance called ‘Justice,’ where
Love comes on a contract with an “escape clause,” and
everyone’s glued to their phones, yet, no-one is listening . . .
We just, might-again, ask ourselves,
“Who is the fool?” and
“Along with Jesus, where do I stand?”
3. I noticed things in the Passion this week that never quite registered before. Like this:
They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it.
Drugged…presumably in an attempt to be more humane about his death sentence. But Jesus didn’t take it. He chose to feel every bit of his Passion.
I offer the discomfort of this fast day, small as it is, for a beautiful soul in my husband’s family who went home to God yesterday. May He grant her speedy entry into His presence, and wrap her family in comfort.
Your baby is young and still nursing full-time. You need to keep up your nourishment and strength so I”m pretty sure you’re exempt from fasting… not that 2 small meals and 1 regular is true fasting.
Oh, I know. I don’t do a real fast, but I do try to eat less than normal. I’ve been pregnant or nursing nearly every fast day for the last seven years, so it begins to feel like a copout after a while!
Kate- I saw the myrrh piece too. Don’t know why it stood out this year. Maybe it was one of the changes in the language. I actually noticed quite a few differences in the readings.
Sorry for your family’s loss.
What a powerful photo!
I thought a lot of the wording in the palm sunday passion seemed different this year. Could it be the new mass translation? I liked the deacon’s homily last weekend too. Nice to read it again on Good Friday.