Good Friday

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Collect for Good Friday:

"ALMIGHTY God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen."

Today is a day for mourning. We behold the Passion of our Lord culminating in his death. We see that we are there, guilty.

Jesus was not compelled by justice to offer himself, but rather moved by compassion. Do not believe that horrible lie that the Trinity was constrained by anything towards the Cross. It was the desire to have man as an active participant in their shared life that the Persons of the Trinity committed to this action.

"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:14)

It was love. It was love. It was love.

God grant us the grace to behold these things and weep.