Good Friday
3 April 2026
Come, let us adore
Today, the Church does something unlike any other day of the year.
There is no Mass. No consecration. No opening sign of the cross. We enter in silence, we kneel, and we fix our attention on one thing alone: the Cross.
Because Good Friday is the one day where the Church directs all attention to the Cross itself—Christ’s sacrifice, offered once for all—and invites us not only to hear of it, but to venerate it as the source of our salvation.
If we are honest we would have to admit, the Cross is not what we would naturally choose. We would choose resurrection without suffering. Victory without sacrifice. Glory without the Cross.
But the Church will not let us skip ahead.
Today forces us to stop. To look. To listen. To remain.
And what we hear in the Passion according to John is something striking.
Jesus is not simply a victim.
He is in control.
When they come to arrest Him, He steps forward: “Whom are you looking for?” When He speaks, they fall to the ground. When Pilate questions Him, Jesus answers with authority.
Even on the Cross, John’s Gospel shows us that Jesus is not having His life taken from Him, He is offering it.
The Cross is not an accident. It is not a tragedy that got out of control. It is a sacrifice. A deliberate, willing, loving self-offering of the Son to the Father, for us.
That means the Cross is not just something that happened to Jesus.
It is something Jesus chose, for you.
For your sin. For your wounds. For everything broken in your life and in this world.
And the Church makes sure we don’t keep that at a distance.
We don’t just hear about the Cross today.
We approach it.
We venerate it.
We kiss it.
Think about that.
We kiss the instrument of execution.
It would be like kissing the electric chair!
We kiss the place of suffering.
We kiss the Cross.
Why?
Because what once was a sign of shame has become the place of our salvation.
“Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.”
Not part of our salvation. Not a symbol of our salvation. The source of it.
And that brings us to something deeper.
Because the Cross doesn’t just reveal who Jesus is.
It reveals who we are.
It reveals the reality of sin, not as an abstract idea, but as something that wounds, that betrays, that crucifies.
In the Passion, we see every kind of human failure. Judas betrays. Peter denies. The crowd turns. Pilate washes his hands. The soldiers mock. The disciples flee.
And if we’re honest, we can find ourselves in all of them.
Which means this is not just their story.
It’s ours.
But here’s the difference.
Jesus does not respond with rejection.
He does not come down from the Cross.
He does not retaliate.
Instead, He remains.
He endures.
He loves to the end.
And that’s what makes the Cross not just a revelation of sin, but a revelation of mercy.
Because at the very moment when humanity does its worst, God gives His best.
At the very moment of rejection, Jesus gives Himself completely.
At the very moment of sin, grace is poured out.
That’s why we call this day Good Friday.
Not because the suffering is good. Not because it was good for us to kill the creator, the lover of our soul, the Son of God.
But because what God does with it is good.
He takes the worst thing imaginable, and turns it into the means of our salvation.
And that’s not just something that happened once.
That’s the pattern of the Christian life.
Because every one of us carries crosses. Some are visible. Some are hidden. Some are heavy in ways that no one else can see.
And our instinct is to run from them, to avoid them, to seek comfort, to ask God to take them away.
And sometimes He does.
But often, He doesn’t.
Instead, He invites us to unite them to His.
Because the Cross of Christ means that suffering is no longer meaningless.
It can be redemptive.
It can be transformed.
It can become the place where grace enters in.
Not because suffering itself is good, but because love can transform it.
That’s what we see today.
Jesus doesn’t just suffer.
He loves in the midst of suffering.
He offers Himself in the midst of pain.
He trusts the Father even in death.
And that’s the invitation for us.
Not to seek out suffering.
But when it comes—as it inevitably does—to carry it with Him.
To unite it to Him.
To trust that God is working even there.
Because the Cross is not the end of the story.
But it is the way.
And the Church makes sure we don’t forget that.
Before Easter.
Before the empty tomb.
Before the alleluia.
There is this.
The Cross.
So today, as you come forward to venerate the Cross, don’t let it be just a ritual.
Make it personal.
Bring your sins.
Bring your wounds.
Bring your questions.
Bring your doubts.
Bring your suffering.
And place them there.
Because this is where they belong.
This is where they are taken up.
This is where they are redeemed.
“Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.”
Come, let us adore.