Collect

Remember your mercies, O Lord,
and with your eternal protection sanctify your servants,
for whom Christ your Son,
by the shedding of his Blood,
established the Paschal Mystery.
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading Isaiah 52:13--53:12

See, my servant shall prosper,
    he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.
Even as many were amazed at him --
    so marred was his look beyond human semblance
    and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man--
so shall he startle many nations,
    because of him kings shall stand speechless;
for those who have not been told shall see,
    those who have not heard shall ponder it.

Who would believe what we have heard?
    To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up like a sapling before him,
    like a shoot from the parched earth;
there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
    nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by people,
    a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces,
    spurned, and we held him in no esteem.

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
    our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
    as one smitten by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
    crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
    by his stripes we were healed.
We had all gone astray like sheep,
    each following his own way;
but the LORD laid upon him
    the guilt of us all.

Though he was harshly treated, he submitted
    and opened not his mouth;
like a lamb led to the slaughter
    or a sheep before the shearers,
    he was silent and opened not his mouth.
Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away,
    and who would have thought any more of his destiny?
When he was cut off from the land of the living,
    and smitten for the sin of his people,
a grave was assigned him among the wicked
    and a burial place with evildoers,
though he had done no wrong
    nor spoken any falsehood.
But the LORD was pleased
    to crush him in infirmity.

If he gives his life as an offering for sin,
    he shall see his descendants in a long life,
    and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.

Because of his affliction
    he shall see the light in fullness of days;
through his suffering, my servant shall justify many,
    and their guilt he shall bear.
Therefore I will give him his portion among the great,
    and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty,
because he surrendered himself to death
    and was counted among the wicked;
and he shall take away the sins of many,
    and win pardon for their offenses.

Responsorial Psalm  31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25

R/. (Lk 23:46) Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

In you, O LORD, I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame.
In your justice rescue me.
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
    you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God. R/.

For all my foes I am an object of reproach,
    a laughingstock to my neighbors, and a dread to my friends;
    they who see me abroad flee from me.
I am forgotten like the unremembered dead;
    I am like a dish that is broken. R/.

But my trust is in you, O LORD;
    I say, “You are my God.
In your hands is my destiny; rescue me
    from the clutches of my enemies and my persecutors.” R/.

Let your face shine upon your servant;
    save me in your kindness.
Take courage and be stouthearted,
    all you who hope in the LORD.

Second Reading Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Brothers and sisters:
Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, 
Jesus, the Son of God, 
let us hold fast to our confession.
For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, 
but one who has similarly been tested in every way,
yet without sin.
So let us confidently approach the throne of grace 
to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.

In the days when Christ was in the flesh, 
he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears 
to the one who was able to save him from death, 
and he was heard because of his reverence.
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; 
and when he was made perfect,
he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

Gospel Acclamation

The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John (18:1-19:42)

 

Text can be found at https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041417.cfm#CP_JUMP_3683

Catena Nova

[These passages are offered for reflection either today or tomorrow prior to the Easter Vigil]

The Savior did not give up his life by compulsion, nor was he put to death…except voluntarily. Hear what he says: I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take it up again. Willingly do I yield it to my enemies; for if I did not so will, it would not happen (cf. Jn 10:18). Well then, he came of set purpose to his passion, rejoicing at the noble deed, smiling at the crown, cheered by the salvation of men. He was not ashamed of the cross, for it was effecting the salvation of the world. Indeed, it was no common man who was suffering. It was God made man…. The Savior endured these things, and made peace through the blood of the cross for things in heaven and things on earth.  (St. Cyril of Jerusalem)

[The Church] she sees death dead and death’s author defeated. She beholds captivity led captive from hell to earth and from earth to heaven so that in the name of Jesus every knee bends in heaven, on earth, and in hell. She beholds the earth, which produced thorns and thistles under the ancient curse, blooming again by the grace of a new blessing. And in all this she thinks of the psalm which says: And my flesh flourishes again, with all my will I shall praise him. She wishes to add to the fruits of the passion which she had picked from the tree of the cross some of the flowers of the Resurrection whose fragrance will induce the Bridegroom to visit her more often…. The heavenly Bridegroom enjoys those perfumes so much that he willingly and often enters the chambers of the heart he finds decked with these flowers and fruits. Where he sees a mind constantly occupied with the grace of the Passion and the glory of the Resurrection, there he is constantly and willingly present. If we wish to have Christ for a guest often, we must keep our hearts fortified by the testimony of our faith in the mercy of him who died for us, and in the power of him who rose from the dead. (St. Bernard of Clairvaux)

I rejoice that I love the One who loves me, and I pray that I may love him without measure and without ceasing until the day I die. Rejoice, O my soul! For he gave his life because of his love for you. Love him so deeply that you would gladly die because of your love for him. In this way you will burn as an inextinguishable spark in the fire of the living Majesty:

So you will be filled

With Love’s Fire,

Therefore you are happy here!

You don’t need to teach me any more

For I can never turn away from Love;

I am Love’s prisoner,

Otherwise I could not live.

Where Love lives I will live,

In death also as in life. (St. Mechthild of Magdeburg)

I want you to follow the Magdalen, that lovely woman in love, who never let go of the tree of the most holy cross. No, with perseverance she was bathed in the blood of God’s Son…she so filled her memory and heart and understanding with it that she became incapable of loving anything but Christ Jesus. This is what I want you to do right up to the end of your life, ­growing from strength to strength. Persevere day after day. Never give up…. I want you to take up the staff of the most holy cross, upon which all the virtues are ­planted and rooted, and contemplate the Lamb, slain for us with such blazing fire that it must burn and ­consume whatever coldness or hardheartedness or self-love there might be in our soul…. So get up with true humility and a willingness to ­suffer, and follow the meek Lamb with a heart free and generous and filled with charity. Abandon yourself for him, learning from this Jesus who in order to give you the life of grace gave up his bodily life. And as a sign of his generosity he opened up his whole self by creating a bath within his open side after he had died, to show us his love. Do you want to live in security? Then hide yourself within this side and see that you are never found outside this opened heart—though once you enter, you will discover such joy and sweetness that you will never want to leave. For it is an open storehouse filled with spices, overflowing with mercy. And that ­mercy gives grace and leads to everlasting life, where there is life without death, satiety without boredom, hunger without pain, perfect and complete joy with no bitterness at all. There our appetite and taste are satisfied. Oh indescribable, immeasurable charity! What drove you to give us this true good? Only the ­boundless love with which you made us.  (St. Catherine of Siena)

Christ’s chief desire was to press on to the final stage of his life…the baptism wherewith he was to be baptized—and to which he hurries on, if one may say so, with the impatience of a lover…. The one pre-eminence he seemed determined to reserve for himself was that of suffering. Looking at his work as it appeared on the day of his death, it seemed to have been a complete failure. The crowds who had acclaimed him on the previous Sunday are replaced on Friday by a mob who clamor for his death. The thousands who heard him and saw his wonderful miracles, and who were helped by him and healed by him, seem to have disappeared. At his death on the cross we find only his Mother, one of the apostles, a few faithful women; and in a crowd, a few of his followers, whose eminence, perhaps, gave them courage to be present. He himself is branded as an imposter, disgraced as criminal, and put to a death that carries with it the stigma of the deepest degradation. All this is part of a plan, but the plan is one which shatters our standards of value. On that very end of our Lord’s life, which material standards condemn as a complete failure, the whole history of the human race hangs in eternal dependence. Since our Lord was God, since the person who acted and suffered in the human nature of Christ was divine, all his acts were of infinite value. Had God so willed, any single one of them, however small, would have been more than sufficient to satisfy for the sins of the world and to redeem all men. Yet God’s love had decided otherwise. For his own wise reasons, to help men to understand the enormity of sin, to win their confidence and their love, and to show them his own immense love and desire for their happiness, God had decreed that the salvation of the world should be purchased by the Passion and Death of his Son. (Fr. M. Eugene Boylan)

Christ our Lord came and took upon himself our humanity. He became the Son of Man. He suffered hunger and thirst and hard toil and temptation. All power was his, but he wished the free love and service of men. He did not force anyone to believe. Saint Paul talks of the liberty of Christ. He did not coerce anyone. He emptied himself and became a servant. He showed the way to true leadership by coming to minister, not to be ministered unto. He set the example and we are supposed to imitate him. We are taught that his Kingdom was not of this earth. He did not need pomp and circumstance to prove himself the Son of God. His were hard sayings, so that even his own followers did not know what he was saying, did not understand him. It was not until after he died on the cross, it was not until he had suffered utter defeat, it would seem, and they thought their cause was lost entirely; it was not until they had persevered and prayed with all the fervor and desperation of their poor loving hearts, that they were enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and knew the truth with a strength that enabled them to suffer defeat and martyrdom in their turn. They knew then that not by force of arms, by the bullet or the ballot, would they conquer. They knew and were ready to suffer defeat—to show that great love which enabled them to lay down their lives for their friends. (Dorothy Day)

O the depths of the riches of wisdom and of the knowledge of God. Today, my heart stands in love and awe before these great words of Saint Paul. The thought comes to me not to wonder that I love you, but to marvel that you love me. As the mystery of your love unfolds before me in the Incarnation, the Redemption, I realize more and more my utter nothingness. What am I? Just clay, dust. Yet, through your love, I am God-like. I am a God-bearer. O Jesus, Lord and Master, I fall at your feet and adore you with all the love and the power of my soul. I am yours to do with as you please. Teach me to see your will in all events. Teach me as you have taught the bee to gather honey from flowers. Teach me to gather your pleasure in all things that befall me. Make me realize that, far from being a source of misery, humiliation, persecution, gossip, revilement and misunderstandings are but opportunities to share your Passion, avenues of sacrifice and merit.

I have made my choice. I want to be wherever you are. I want to follow you to the end. Yes, I know your end was Calvary; your way was the Way of the Cross. It will also be mine. I know that, alone, I cannot make it, for all comes from you, all goes through you, and all leads to your glory. So humbly and simply I ask, “Take my hands and lead me.” It is you who have put the desire to follow you into my heart. It is to you that I turn when the cross you have chosen for me seems too heavy. It is to you I look when, bruised and bleeding, I cannot walk any more. Here I am, O Most Holy Trinity—in my nothingness and unworthiness, your fool, your child—yours to do with as you please. I need your help; alone I cannot do anything. I love you. I adore you. (Catherine de Hueck Doherty)

 [There is no homily]

Solemn Intercessions

These may be found at https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/GoodFriday-Intercessions.html

Special Prayer for Ukraine

Let us pray for the people in Ukraine and in all war zones of the world,
for those who have fled the dread of violence and have been deprived of their homes,
for all women and men who stand up with their lives to ward off evil and to protect the weak and the persecuted.

Prayer in silence.

Almighty and eternal God,
you have compassion for the lowly and the poor, but you throw down oppressors.
As you guided Israel out of slavery in Egypt, so save in our days all victims of war and violence.
Change the hearts of the evildoers, and let peace be victorious.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. — Amen.

Veneration of the Cross

 

Hymn During the Veneration

Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s glory:

Tell his triumph far and wide;

Tell aloud the famous story

Of his body crucified;

How upon the cross a victim,

Vanquishing in death, he died.

Faithful cross, O tree all beauteous!

Tree all peerless and divine,

Not a grove on earth can show us

Such a flow’r and leaf as thine.

Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood,

Laden with so sweet a load!

Eating of the tree forbidden,

Humans sank in Satan’s snare,

When our pitying Creator

Did this second tree prepare;

Destined, many ages later,

That first evil to repair.

Such the order God appointed

When for sin he would atone;

To the serpent thus opposing

Schemes yet deeper than his own;

Thence the remedy procuring,

When the fatal wound had come.

So when now at length the fullness

Of the sacred time drew nigh,

Then the Son, the world’s Creator,

Left his Father’s throne on high;

From a virgin’s womb appearing,

Clothed in our mortality.

Thus did Christ to perfect manhood

In our mortal flesh attain:

Then of his free choice he goes on

To a death of bitter pain;

And as lamb upon the altar

Of the cross, for us is slain.

Lofty tree, bend down your branches,

To embrace your sacred load;

Oh, relax the native tension

Of that all too rigid wood;

Gently, gently bear the members

Of your dying King and God.

Blessing, honor, everlasting,

To the immortal Deity;

To the Father, Son, and Spirit,

Equal praises ever be;

Glory through the earth and heaven,

Trinity in Unity. Amen.

Communion Hymn (Orlando Gibbons)

 

Drop, drop, slow tears, and bathe those beauteous feet,
which brought from heaven the news and Prince of Peace.

Cease not, wet eyes, his mercies to entreat;
to cry for vengeance sin doth never cease.

In your deep floods drown all my faults and fears;
nor let his eye see sin, but through my tears.

Concluding Prayer

May abundant blessing, O Lord, we pray,
descend upon your people,
who have honored the Death of your Son
in the hope of their resurrection:
may pardon come,
comfort be given,
holy faith increase,
and everlasting redemption be made secure.
Through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.