On this day we cannot escape the image of the Cross. For some it is what St. Paul calls a scandal, a stumbling block. For others it is a reminder of a terrible death, the unjust conviction of an innocent man, Yes, there is darkness on this day, a certain emptiness that the Church acknowledges by not celebrating Mass and by having an empty tabernacle on this day.
The liturgical service is rather a service commemorating the passion and death of Jesus on the Cross. After hearing the Gospel account of Christ’s passion and death, we are invited to venerate the Cross on which Christ died.
What is the goodness of this day which explains why we call it “Good Friday”? The goodness of the Cross is in the saving power of God’s love. By God’s power what may seem to many to be a sign of death is actually a sign of life! The dying of Jesus on the Cross is a dying which is life-giving. Jesus himself used the image of the grain of wheat that must fall to the earth and “die” so that it can give new life. The dying of Jesus on the Cross is the dying of life-giving love.
It is indeed a sign of the greatest love that can be known. At the Last Supper, the night before he died, Jesus told his disciples that there is no greater love than the love that lays down one’s life for friends.
The Cross which we venerate at today’s liturgy is the saving Cross of God’s love for us.
Approaching the Cross for veneration, we hear the proclamation, “Behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the salvation of the world,” and we respond, “Come, let us adore.” We then venerate the Cross thanking God for the love that gives life. This Friday is made “good” by the goodness of Christ’s love.
Without Good Friday, there would be no Easter Sunday as a day of rejoicing, as a day of triumph and hope
St. Ignatius of Loyola suggests that we “imagine Christ our Lord present before us upon the cross, and begin to speak to him, asking him how it is though He is the Creator, He has stooped to become man, and to pass from eternal life to death here in time, that this He might die for our sins” and that “I shall also reflect upon myself and ask: ‘What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ?” (Spiritual Exercises, “Colloquy, First Exercise in the First Week”)