GOOD FRIDAY (CONDUCT TO SPEND HOLY LENT from Rnd Father AVRILLON)
PRACTICE
Ascend in spirit to Calvary; place yourself at the foot of the Cross. Fix your eyes on the Dying Jesus; hear his sad complaints, and see him Suffer and Die. Make yourself a victim with Jesus Christ; offer your blood with his. Sacrifice wholeheartedly everything you have and everything you are. Deprive yourself of any pleasure other than that of thinking of Jesus Crucified on the Cross for your love.
MEDITATION
He is dead. (Luke, 23).
1st POINT : Here finally is the last act of the most painful, the bloodiest, the most cruel, but at the same time the most august, the most important and the most effective of all sacrifices. Ascend in spirit with Jesus Christ to Calvary; see him stripped by the executioners; hear the blows of hammers driving the nails into his hands and feet; see with holy horror the Blood that flows from it; raise your eyes as the Cross is raised, to see the Victim expire; it is your God, your Savior, who will die to give you Life.
He had said to his Heavenly Father, through one of his prophets: Lord, victims and burnt offerings did not please you, so I said: Here I am as a Victim to do your Will. The Savior united in his person two hitherto incomparable qualities, those of Priest and Victim together. Finally, Jesus, dying, bows his Head as a sign of reconciliation and tenderness, and to show us that his Sacrifice had appeased the Anger of God, and that he would grant us through the Merits of his Death all the requests that we could make of him.
2nd POINT : This Divine Savior died! his Spirit was overwhelmed with sadness, his Heart was pierced
with pain, his Mouth watered with gall, his
burning Breast had caused him a deadly thirst; his
Head, his Hands, his Feet, and his whole Body torn; and it is a Miracle of his Power and Love that he did not die sooner. He wanted,
said a father, for his Body to be opened on all sides
before expiring, so that I could see more clearly
the Deep Wound that Love had made in his Heart
(D. Bern. Serm.); and it was this wound more than any
other that caused his death. Consider this Innocent Victim: he is still attached to the Cross,
he remained there until the consummation of his
Sacrifice; remain attached to it with him until the
last moment of your life; sacrifice to him all the
pleasures of the senses, be mortified in all things,
submit yourselves to all the sufferings and all
the privations that will happen to you, so that you
can say with the Great Apostle: I am crucified
with Jesus Christ.
FEELINGS
Adorable Jesus, Agonizing Savior, God Almighty and weak for my love, Priest and Victim all together, who offer you in sacrifice; by dying for me on the Cross! I offer you, O Jesus Sacrificed! my possessions, my desires, my mind, my heart, my body, my life. Your Bloody Cross will be the Altar, my love will be the fire, and my entire heart the victim; I want there to be nothing in me that this Sacred Fire does not consume in a perfect holocaust.
Receive, O dying God, this sacrifice; attach me so strongly to your Cross with you, that I only come down to enjoy the reward promised to those who follow you in your sufferings. Support me in this spirit of sacrifice: I want to be a victim, I want to suffer, I want to die for you and with you.
SENTENCES
Jesus humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, and the death of the cross (Philip. 2).
Jesus sacrificed on the tree of the cross is the cause, the motive and the model of all our sacrifices (D. Bern. serm.)
REFLECTIONS
Jesus dead on the cross
Barely did the Savior close His Eyes, Barely has he consummated his Sacrifice, expiring on the Cross, when everything bursts into prodigies. The sun darkens; the veil of the temple splits in two; the earth trembles; rocks break; the tombs open; everything mourns in its own way the Death of its God.
However, the fury of the Jews is not yet satisfied against Jesus Christ; they pierce his heart with a spear, and blood and water come out in abundance; and this is how they still wanted to exercise a remnant of barbarity and cruelty against the Body of Jesus Christ. What an outrage, oh my God! but what a deep Mystery! you wanted me to see this Adorable Heart in the open, where the infinite Love that you had for me resided, you wanted there to always be in this Heart a door to my reconciliation. Open this Heart to me again, O my Adorable Jesus! wash me in this Water, purify me from this Blood that came out of it. May this pure Water purify me, and may it bring tears to my eyes to mourn your Sorrows and my sins; and may this Blood, so precious and so effective, support me, nourish me, strengthen me and inflame me with love for You.
PRAY
Expiring Savior, Author of Life who suffer death today to save myself from Eternal Death, allow me to mingle my tears with the Blood that comes out of your entire Body. Ah! Lord, since it is for me that you suffer and die, apply to me the Merits of your Suffering and of your Death, so that, dying to myself, I will henceforth live only for You.