Daily Reflection for Friday, April 02, 2021
Peace and Blessings, Friends and Parishioners,
We encourage you to reflect on Good Friday’s readings at this link:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040221.cfm
If you prefer to use your own Bible, the readings are:
First Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Responsorial: Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25
Second Reading: Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9
Gospel: John 18:1–19:42
Our reflection on Good Friday’s readings:
“Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, ‘Whom are you looking for?’ They answered him, ‘Jesus the Nazorean.’ He said to them, “I AM.’ …” John 18:4-5
Today, Good Friday, finds us reading about Jesus being in our world but He was not known. Even His own people did not accept Him. Even His disciples abandoned Him.
How would you feel? Can you even begin to imagine how Jesus must have felt and all that He had to encounter? Can you just imagine how He must have felt when dragging His own cross up the hill to Calvary—the hill outside Jerusalem for His own crucifixion? Can you even begin to imagine His intense suffering that took place at the crucifixion site?
Good Friday is a most solemn and reflective day for us. By his commitment to a gruesome death, Christ redeemed us all. In the second grade, I (Carlos) thought it would storm on Good Friday. I waited for the lightning bolts and thunder. When that didn’t happen, I figured it only happened in Jerusalem, wherever Jerusalem may have been. I knew I wouldn’t want to live there especially on Good Friday.
But there is lightning—our good deeds, our willingness to see things from another’s view, our acts of kindness—all illuminate like lightning in darkness. All we have is one another. Think of the times in the past 40 days that you have done something for another. Was it a gesture of waiting for someone to cross the street, a wave, a courteous response to a waiter or a cashier acknowledging his/her presence? For a loved one, was it a high five? Did those brief acts make you feel better, more relaxed, and more alive?
Christ was most alive at the moment of his death. His lightning cut away the darkness for all generations. Be alive on this most solemn day and know that you are bathed and saved in exhilarating brightness of God’s lightning.
May we continue to pray, meditate, reflect, and imagine with deep gratitude how Christ suffered for us out of pure love as we prepare to celebrate the Resurrection. Can you even begin to imagine our lives today without Good Friday?
Dorothy and Carlos Alexander