USCCB Readings for Good Friday Service linked here. This morning we stand at the threshold of Good Friday, a feast celebrated by Catholics and many other Christians around the world. It is just after 9 AM as I am writing, and using Mark’s chronology, Jesus was crucified at 9 AM. Mark goes on to record that a great darkness fell upon the earth at 12 PM, which lasted to mid-afternoon, when Jesus entered his final death agony. Mark’s specificity about time has led some biblical scholars to wonder if the evangelist was influenced by the actual liturgical observance of Good Friday in place as early as 65 A.D. The main body of historical evidence currently available describes an observance of the Lord’s death as a long, evolving process. For starters, the annual date of Easter was still a matter of debate in the Western Roman Church as late as the eighth century. What is clear is a consistency of form: for much of the Church’s history, at least till the Middle Ages, Good Friday was observed as a Word Service, readings from the Sacred Scriptures, psalms, and prayers of petition. With renewed devotion to the Eucharist in the age of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Holy Thursday Mass included the consecration of a special host for the veneration of the faithful from the end of the Holy Thursday Mass until the beginning of the Good Friday service. For much of the second millennium the Good Friday rite included the reception of the communion by the celebrant alone. (In 1955 Pope Pius XII extended Good Friday communion to all of the faithful.) [Give yourself 10 points if you remember the old name for the Good Friday liturgical observance: “The Mass of the Pre-Sanctified.” The term is half right; the Church has never prescribed a full Eucharistic celebration of Mass for Good Friday—there has always been a sense that the memory of the first Eucharistic sacrifice of Jesus upon the Cross holds a natural preeminence on Good Friday.] The Good Friday liturgy is one of the truly moving communal events in the Church’s worship life—if it is celebrated in the manner prescribed by the Missal. I am not obsessively compulsive about liturgical law, but I do notice time and again that the official Church missal addresses major feasts—Good Friday, certainly—with simplicity, gravitas, and tradition. As all of us will be attending different churches with different celebrants and varying management of the rites, each of us will come away with varying degrees of catharsis, that rich term Aristotle uses in his Poetics to describe a draining or cleansing of the emotions. Is there any day of more profound emotion than the observance of the innocent man whose agonizing death, given in perfect generosity, has changed yours and mine destiny in ways we can hardly conceive? To its lasting credit, the Church has bequeathed to us a rite that is rich in gravitas and a magnificent tradition of music for Good Friday as well. A tremendously emotional rite of the Good Friday is the Veneration of the Cross, which follows the Liturgy of the Word. This is sacramental action at its best, for it involves us internally and externally in all of our senses. We walk in procession, our own little walk up the will of Golgotha, “the place of the skull.” We approach the true wood and behold it. We touch the wood, and we place our lips upon the replica of the wood where our lives were saved and our destinies assured. As the procession usually takes some time, we have the opportunity to observe and pray for those embracing the cross. What divine action is taking place in the heart of each person who presses his or her face into the wood of the cross? I have seen grown men fall to their knees and sob during parish veneration of the Good Friday cross. [My sincere hope is that every one of you has the opportunity to venerate a full sized wooden cross, which is the official Roman rubric. There is a provision for the United State to use more than one cross if numbers are large, but a cross must always be used, not a smaller crucifix. Many parishes are careless about this, one of many times in our country where practicality trumps gravitas and sacramental principle.] But what about sacred hearing? The Roman missal calls for the singing of the “Reproaches” during the veneration of the cross. I have to agree with a conservative blogger from another site that the disappearance of this centuries old song-prayer from the Good Friday rite is wrong on many levels. Your missalette should have the Reproaches in a place of prominence at the Veneration point. Some missalette companies omit the venerable text and recommend trite ditties from their own in-house production crews. As my parish tends down this unfortunate path far too often, I went to You-Tube to see if there might be a video of the Veneration of the Cross with the singing of the Reproaches in English. I ended up totally engaged in the 12-minute clip. My eyes filled, to tell you the truth. And for at least one quarter hour I experience the sacramental gravitas of this year's Triduum. The Reproaches (Improperia) Antiphon 1 and 2: We worship you, Lord, we venerate your cross, we praise your resurrection. 1: Through the cross you brought joy to the world. 1: (Psalm 66:2) May God be gracious and bless us; and let his face shed its light upon us. Repeat Antiphon by 1 and 2: The Reproaches: I. 1 and 2: My people, what have I done to you How have I offended you? Answer me! 1: I led you out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom, but you led your Savior to the cross. 2: My people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me! 1: Holy is God! 2: Holy and strong! 1: Holy immortal One, have mercy on us! 1 and 2: For forty years I led you safely through the desert. I fed you with manna from heaven, and brought you to a land of plenty; but you led your Savior to the cross. Repeat "Holy is God..." 1 and 2: What more could I have done for you. I planted you as my fairest vine, but you yielded only bitterness: when I was thirsty you gave me vinegar to drink, and you pierced your Savior with a lance. Repeat "Holy is God..." II. 1: For your sake I scourged your captors and their firstborn sons, but you brought your scourges down on me. (Repeated throughout by Choir 2) 2: My people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me! 1: I led you from slavery to freedom and drowned your captors in the sea, but you handed me over to your high priests. 2: "My people...." 1: I opened the sea before you, but you opened my side with a spear. 2: "My people...." 1: I led you on your way in a pillar of cloud, but you led me to Pilate's court. 2: "My people...." 1: I bore you up with manna in the desert, but you struck me down and scourged me. 2: "My people...." 1: I gave you saving water from the rock, but you gave me gall and vinegar to drink. 2: "My people...." 1: For you I struck down the kings of Canaan. but you struck my head with a reed. 2: "My people...." 1: I gave you a royal scepter, but you gave me a crown of thorns. 2: "My people...." 1: I raised you to the height of majesty, but you have raised me high on a cross. 2: "My people...."
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I regret that I missed yesterday's posting on the Catechism. I lost the entire text as I was transferring it to the blog site, and I'm still not sure why. So, I will try to recall that text from memory and post it next Thursday. I am off today, but I did want to post a very disturbing news story regarding our ongoing difficulty with child abuse and the malfeasance of some Catholic bishops. The State of Pennsylvania has investigated the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and released its report. This may not be a news story you would want to read right now. For a relatively small diocese, the sheer numbers of cases are astounding. What is worse, in my view, is the patterns of management over the years by several bishops, which involved conspiracy with civil officials and a very cold-hearted program of compensation for victims. The practices continued until 2009, seven years after the U.S. Bishops' Dallas Charter and the events portrayed in the movie, "Spot Light."
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