It’s Good Friday

Today, the Christian world lapses into silence and mourning as we remember the passion and death of our Lord.

In the months before and after Tom’s death, I found my myself returning again and again to the prayers we say during the Stations of the Cross. I’m to the point now where I realize it’s a bit presumptuous to compare my pain to Christ’s. However, for a long time, these passages summed up how I felt and provided some measure of comfort.

With a loud voice I cry out to the Lord; / with a loud voice I beseech the Lord. / My complaint I pour out before him: before him I lay bare my distress. / When my spirit is faint within me, you know my path. / In the way along which I walk they have hid a trap for me. / I look to the right to see, but there is no one who pays me heed. / I have lost all means of escape; / There is no one who cares for my life. (Ps 141:2-5)

Come, all you who pass by the way, / look and see whether there is any suffering like my suffering, / suffering with which the Lord has afflicted me on the day of his blazing wrath. / At this I weep, my eyes run with tears: / far from me are all who would console me, / far away are any who might revive me. (Lam 1:1,12,16)

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, / far from my prayer, far from the words of my cry? / O my God, I cry out by day, and you answer not; / I cry out by night, and there is no relief for me. (Ps 22:2-3)

For great as the sea is your distress; / who can heal you? (Lam 2:13)

The Lord is my light and my salvation; / whom should I fear? / The Lord is my life’s refuge; / of whom should I be afraid? / When evildoers come at me to devour my flesh, / my foes and my enemies themselves stumble and fall. / Though an army encamp against me, / my heart will not fear; / though war be waged upon me, even then will I trust. (Ps 26:1-3)

I looked about but there was no one to help, /I was appalled that there was no one to lend support; / so my own arm brought about the victory. (Is 63:5)

At nightfall, weeping enters in, but with dawn comes rejoicing. (Ps 30:5)

I hope, my friends, that your night of weeping is coming to an end and that you too will rejoice in the morning.

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