News Item: : Good Friday - 2016
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Friday 25 March 2016 - 10:24:53

Philippians 2:8: He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.

This is a day of Fasting and Abstinence in the Catholic Church. The Sacred Liturgy today is particularly solemn and takes us into, and through, the saving events of Christ's Passion and Death.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has loved us unto death on the Cross. Today, the Church gives us a special opportunity to enter into His unfathomable mercy and love for each and all of us. Let us enter into that love, by sincere repentance for our sins, by making a good Confession and by making acts of charity towards others out of love for Him.

If you have not been to Confession, or even to church for a long time: please, do not be afraid. It is Our Lord Himself Who prompts you to repentance and waits to forgive and heal you in the person of the priest in the confessional. Confession has helped us so much. Hurry home to be welcomed by Jesus this Easter.

A Blessed Day

How much we need Good Friday in our lives! As we reflected last year, Great Britain has changed dramatically in recent times.

In our parents' day, huge numbers went to church on Good Friday, the shops were closed and the radio stations played sombre music. Even many of those who did not go to church ate fish and acted soberly.

When we were young adults, the Catholic churches were still packed for the Easter Triduum and most of the shops remained closed.

Gradually, the shops and shopping centres began to open up for the day.

In 2014, a lad who works in a bookmakers' shop on Merseyside was saying that his company was forcing workers to work on Good Friday, for the first time ever. Although he was not a Christian, he recognized the cultural significance of the loss of the ''bank holiday''.

Good Friday in England is now typified by the bustling trade going on in bookmakers, pubs, shops and supermarkets; whilst attendance at the liturgies in many places is in free-fall.

There is also an increasing attempt to eradicate Easter, at least in its religious sense, from the culture.

Although there continues to be a roaring trade in chocolate eggs, flowers and good food, many of the new diaries for 2016 were sold without Good Friday or Easter Sunday being marked in them. Numbers of local councils have renamed the Easter Break in their schools as Spring Break; and have even postponed the usual two-week school holidays, so that they do not start until the week following Easter Sunday. As my barber lamented last week: ''The Easter weekend was always right in the centre of your two-week Easter holidays as a kid!'' 

Even for those who never darkened the door of a church, the long weekend running from Good Friday through Easter Monday was always sacrosanct as a national holiday in this country. Yet last year, and again this year, our Green Bin collection for garden waste has been scheduled to take place early on Easter Monday; which would also require us to put the bin out during the evening of Easter Sunday. We did not put our bin out for collection last year; and we won't be putting it out this year either.

As society becomes less and less aware of Easter and all that it signifies and makes possible, it becomes more important for us to enter ever more deeply into the graces of this holy season. St. Paul taught us that we should be wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16). Let us not be discouraged, but rather may we console our Saviour in His Passion, thank Him for the gift of faith, ask Him for the grace of a deeper conversion and intercede for those who do not know or love Him. The 3pm Good Friday liturgy gives us such an important opportunity to do all of these things.

We try to highlight Good Friday locally with this window poster: Sic Deus Dilexit Mundum translates as God so loved the world (John 3:16).

Reminder: the daily Novena of Chaplets of Divine Mercy commences today in preparation for the celebration of the Feast of Divine Mercy on Low Sunday.

O Holy and Immortal One - Have Mercy on Us!

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1268 )