Posted on 04/14/2006 10:56:32 AM PDT by NYer
I avoid using the term "Happy", as there is nothing really happy about it.
Thank you for sharing. This sums up entirely how I feel on Good Friday. I cannot do the ordinary things without some guilt. My thoughts are on the Saviour all day and night.
Agreed. I do the same on Memorial Day. The best I can come up with is wishing people a Reverent day.
I think that's the point. No consumer orgy. Deo gratias.
Thank you so much for sharing the background on your secretary. She is not alone. USA Today printed an article this week (could not post it to the forum due to copyright infringement) in which they note that in ALL christian faiths, the number of Baptisms has slipped. Many people are no longer opting for Baptism. This is truly sad.
One of my coworkers was raised catholic. He married a catholic woman in a Catholic Church. They chose to have only one child and have never had her baptized. Like many catholics, this couple no longer practice their faith. It breaks my heart! I once approached him about their rationale and his response is one I have heard before. They feel it is their daughter's decision to choose her own faith when she grows up. That is precisely how my father's family raised him. He is now well into his 70s. Despite marrying a catholic woman and agreeing to raise me catholic, even attending Sunday Mass with us, he shys away from all religion.
At the conclusion of tonight's Good Friday liturgy, a young boy aged 5 kept asking everyone why Jesus would not come down from the cross. His face was so pained. The parish administrator explained to him that Jesus died for us and would return to life on Sunday. That seemed to put him at ease.
His mother is a very devout Maronite Catholic. She brings her 3 small children (the boy is the oldest!) to liturgy on Sundays and to the Stations of the Cross throughout Lent. What we witnessed tonight in this young child, was the budding of the seeds that have been planted since his Baptism. This same child, last year, was running up and down the aisles; yet tonight, as he watched the men carry the shroud bearing the body of Christ (a small Crucifix) around the church, everything he had absorbed over the past 5 years, began to blossom. In his juvenile maturity, he has begun to understand the rudiments of our Catholic faith and now 'hushes' his younger siblings when they act up. I embraced his mother and congratulated her on her steadfast approach of ensuring that her children would grow in the faith. The soil in which the seeds (of Baptism) have been planted, must be tilled and watered. Without a faith foundation, children grow into adults like your young secretary Ann.
I just emailed this essay to my very pagan young secretary Ann who came in today, said "Happy Good Friday" in a sort of hesitant voice and asked, what do you do on Good Friday anyway? I said, I go to Church, want to come?
Kudos on inviting her to come to Church! Don't give up! Keep praying for her and ask her patron saint, Ann, to guide and direct her home. No prayer goes unanswered! God bless you for the courage to extend this invitation to her and may our Lord richly reward and bless you and all your family.
"I just returned from stations of the cross, otherwise I might be compelled to say some unkind words to the bozo upthread."
As you might guess from my FR handle, I get the opportunity to deal with that issue quite a bit.
The best thing to do is to wish them a blessed Easter and move on.
This is a great thread.
Good Friday is such a....hard? unusual? set apart? day for those of us who believe.
Me, I spend it thinking about the Passion - what Jesus was willing to do, and the evil that man was willing to do in return.
It is a day I unabashedly cry in grief for our hardness, and cry in thankful sadness for His mercy.
It is a day spent dwelling on death and salvation.
A good day because of what it accomplished. A horrid day because of what was done.
I adore thee, O Christ, and I bless thee,
for by thy holy cross, thou hast redeemed the world.
As St. Paul says: "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
What is odd is that Abraham looked forward to this day Moses did too. The angles in heaven were waiting for the celebration to occur the celebration that God paid the debt and humanity was ransomed back to God this should be a day of celebration not of despair.
Rev 13:8
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
(KJV)
They absorbed the 60's mentality well. Don't judge people, be kind to people, and that's all you need. They don't seem to understand that the reason they have this high minded idea of fairness and equality is because of the religious ideas with which their parents were raised. They were either taught those concepts, or absorbed them from their parents.
Raising their children without any sort of moral grounding, which is usually provided by religious teachings is setting them loose like sheep among wolves. Their kids might find religion later in their lives, but they'll likely have some tough times before then because of choices they make in the absence of strong moral convictions.
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