Today is Good Friday. What is the meaning of this day and why, in the context of the liturgical year, does it take on a particular connotation? Let’s find out together in this article.
What characterizes Good Friday
Good Friday is the only day of the liturgical year in which the Eucharist is not celebrated and the Passion and Death of Jesus followed by the Way of the Cross is commemorated. The bells are silent as a sign of mourning. It is a day marked by pain, in which Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross for the good of humanity.
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The Church celebrates only the liturgical Action of the Passion of the Lord composed of the Liturgy of the Word, the Adoration of the Cross and the Rites of Communion.
The act of love and sacrifice
At the center of Good Friday is the message of the Lord’s supreme sacrifice for humanity. His passion and death on the cross are seen as l‘definitive act of love and donation, through which He took upon himself the sins of the world to offer everyone the possibility of salvation and eternal life. This message of unconditional love and sacrifice is a powerful call to conversion, forgiveness and brotherly love.
What makes this Friday “holy” is not the suffering of death on the cross, but it is precisely the love “until the end” that led the Son of God to die on the cross. This is the love stronger than death because he knows how to embrace even death and overcome it with love.
The liturgical rites of Good Friday
Good Friday is the only day on which mass is not celebrated: the great Priest, the mediator between heaven and earth, in fact, has his hands nailed, is suspended between heaven and earth and shouts out darkness and silence of the sky on an earth where it has become dark.
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The crucified is the stripped, annihilated, completely given God; for this reason he is the God for everyone, without any distinction, the God also for atheists, or for those who are unable to express their faith in any way because they too are nailed down, poor, helpless, victims.
During the morning, Eucharistic adoration at the Altar of the Reposition, set up after the evening Mass in Coena Domini on Thursday. In many cathedral churches and also in several parishes the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer are celebrated communally.
In the afternoontakes place the liturgical Action of the Passion of the Lord, called In Passione Domini, which has very ancient origins (7th century), and is also present in the Byzantine Rite, as one of the three types of Divine Liturgy.
This celebration is structured in three parts. The Liturgy of the Word: First reading: Fourth Canto of the Servant of the Lord (Isaiah 52,13-53,12) Second reading: the salvation of Christ through the painful obedience of the passion (Hebrews 4,14-16; 5,7-9) Gospel: Passion according to John (Jn 18.1-19.42) The solemn universal prayer follows. The Adoration of the Holy Cross and Communion with the Eucharistic species consecrated on Holy Thursday because on this day, the only one in the liturgical year, Mass is not celebrated.
The tradition of the Via Crucis
As tradition, the Via Crucis takes place in every parish, usually in the evening hours. The Pope has lived it in the suggestive setting of the Colosseum since 1965.
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In various Italian regions, impressive processions take place with the Crucifix, with the statues of the Dead Christ and the Madonna Addolorata, or with the statues representing the Stations of the Cross.
TO Reggio Calabria, this year, the Via Crucis will take place in Piazza Duomo, starting at 7pm. She will be led by the metropolitan archbishop of Reggio Calabria-Bova, Monsignor Fortunato Morrone.
