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Good Friday
“Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high… He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth… Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 52:13, 53:7,10). [1]
Today is Good Friday. A spirit of exaltation and glory mark the goodness of this day against a backdrop of death and suffering.[2] The fourth and final Suffering Servant song, cited above, prefigures Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. In ‘Christian cadence’ the Servant breaks sin and death with silence, gentleness, and vulnerability not with force, power, or violence. This is the Lord’s will for his Servant and his will for his people.[3]
Pope Francis spelled out the implications for this in one of his General Audiences, “Holy Week challenges us to step outside ourselves so as to attend to the needs of others: those who long for a sympathetic ear, those in need of comfort or help. We should not simply remain in our own secure world, that of the ninety-nine sheep who never strayed from the fold, but we should go out, with Christ, in search of the one lost sheep, however far it may have wandered. Holy Week is not so much a time of sorrow, but rather a time to enter into Christ’s way of thinking and acting. It is a time of grace given us by the Lord so that we can move beyond a dull or mechanical way of living our faith, and instead open the doors of our hearts, our lives, our parishes, our movements or associations, going out in search of others so as to bring them the light and the joy of our faith in Christ.”[4]
Written by Sarah Ciotti
Reviewed by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB, STD
[1] Revised Standard Version s.v., “Isaiah, The Book of.”
[2] Adrian Nocent, OSB, The Easter Season (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1977), 64-93.
[3] Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) 141-150.
[4] Francis I, General Audience, March 27, 2013.