Why do we not celebrate Mass on Good Friday? If the Mass is the re-presentation of all that happens today, why do we not offer the Mass? Today there is no Mass because there is no need for the sign that points to the reality: we kneel before that very reality today. On this day, we are more really present at the Cross than we are during the Mass. We behold the wood of the Cross upon which hung the salvation of the world because it is happening today. This day is the day appointed by God from all of time to offer the one perfect sacrifice for redemption from sin.
Behold that wood upon which hung your Savior! Behold that bloody tree upon which He hangs because of your sins, because of my sins! Behold the Lamb of God bruised, derided, cursed, defiled, the Lamb who sheds every ounce of His blood so as to take away the sins of the world! All of this because you and I, because we rebel against God, because we choose anything and everything other than God. Because of this, as the prophet Isaiah says, “the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all,” and “the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”
Let us weep this day over the dead body of our Savior. Let us join the sorrowful Mother in weeping that her son has been killed, that she carries with her the sorrow unlike any other sorrow. Let us cast down our faces in shame that each one of us has caused this, each one of us has made this day necessary. But hear carefully the words Isaiah speaks at the end of his prophecy about the suffering servant: “Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many.” Let us remain hopeful that Jesus the suffering servant may justify us by His passion and death.
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