Pause a moment.......

Have you sat at the bedside of someone you loved who was dying? Missing meals and sleep so that not one breath, or word, or action is missed. We are so attentive to each precious moment that we spend with our loved one before they return to God the Father. We are invited to enter Good Friday in that same spirit of loving attention. We are invited to walk the way of the cross with Jesus and to listen carefully to His final words and actions through the readings of the Good Friday liturgy. Let us return love for love. Let us watch and wait with Him.

Reflections on the Stations of the Cross from Thinking Faith - here, here, here and here

"They took Jesus, and, carrying the cross himself,
he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull,
in Hebrew, Golgotha. 

There they crucified him, and with him two others,
one on either side, with Jesus in the middle.
Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross.
It read, “Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.”
Now many of the Jews read this inscription,
because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city;
and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate,
“Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’
but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews’.”
Pilate answered,
“What I have written, I have written.”
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus,
they took his clothes and divided them into four shares,
a share for each soldier.
They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless,
woven in one piece from the top down.
So they said to one another,
“Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be, “
in order that the passage of Scripture might be fulfilled that says:
They divided my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.
This is what the soldiers did.
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother
and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary of Magdala.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved
he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”
Then he said to the disciple,
“Behold, your mother.”
And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
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.
Now since it was preparation day,
in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath,
for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one,
the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken
and that they be taken down.
So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first
and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.
But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead,
they did not break his legs,
but one soldier thrust his lance into his side,
and immediately blood and water flowed out.
An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true;
he knows that he is speaking the truth,
so that you also may come to believe.
For this happened so that the Scripture passage might be fulfilled:
Not a bone of it will be broken.
And again another passage says:
They will look upon him whom they have pierced.
After this, Joseph of Arimathea,
secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews,
asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus.
And Pilate permitted it.
So he came and took his body.
Nicodemus, the one who had first come to him at night,
also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes
weighing about one hundred pounds.
They took the body of Jesus
and bound it with burial cloths along with the spices,
according to the Jewish burial custom.
Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden,
and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.
So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day;
for the tomb was close by."

Good Friday Reflection: Overwhelmed by John

Taking down of Jesus from the Cross -

Glory to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy

Spirit both now and ever and unto ages of

ages. Amen

Thou who art clothed with light as a garment,

when Joseph together with Nicodemus took

Thee down from the Tree and he gazed

upon Thee dead, naked and unburied, and

in grief and mourning he lamented:

Woe is me, my sweetest Jesus! A short while

ago, the sun beheld Thee hanging on the

Cross and it shrouded itself in darkness. The

earth quaked in fear. The veil of the temple

was torn. Now I see Thee willingly submitting

to death for my sake. How shall I bury Thee,

O my God? How can I wrap Thee with

windings sheets? How can I touch Thy most

pure body with my hands? What songs shall

I hymn thy departure, O compassionate one?

I magnify Thy Passion. I glorify Thy Burial

and Thy Holy Resurrection, crying:

O Lord, Glory to Thee!