Good Friday : The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ – 18 Apr 2014 Back

Good Friday is the day when Christians all over the world commemorate the passion and death on the cross of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Many Christians spend this day in fasting, prayer, repentance, and meditation on the agony and suffering of Christ on the cross. Many would say that the Passion of Christ is the period of intense suffering in the life of Jesus from the Garden of Gethsemane to the crucifixion.

The Good Friday service was held at the Most Holy Redeemer Church, Derebail at 5 PM with Rev. Fr.  Peter D’souza - Parish Priest, Fr. Edwin Monis - Assistant Parish Priest, Fr. Joseph Martis - Rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary Jeppu and Fr. Alexander Lobo – Parishioner from Derebail Parish as concelebrants. 

The Good Friday Liturgy contains four important parts:

1. Celebration of the Word of God
2. Prayers of the Faithful
3. Veneration of the Cross
4. Holy Eucharist

Fr. Joseph Martis in his homily conveyed that the Source of Christ's Passion was his intense love for mankind. The great love of Jesus resulted in his extreme commitment to walk a very precise and narrow path to redeem mankind. For the sake of restoring humans to fellowship with God, he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant by being made in human likeness (Philippians 2:6-7). His passionate love caused him to leave the glory of heaven to take human form and live an obedient life of self-sacrifice required by the holiness of God. Only such a selfless life could produce the pure and innocent blood sacrifice required to cover the sins of those who put their faith in him (John 3:16; Ephesians 1:7). Through his suffering and death on the cross, Jesus freed us from our sins and gave us eternal life.  He cleansed us by his blood and continues to do even to this day.

The message of Good Friday is incomplete without Easter. The story of the passion is not simply of a man being brutally tortured, nailed to a cross and executed by the Romans. It is the story of a man who turns himself fully over to the Father's will, trusts that something new will come out of this offering, and receives the astonishing gift of new life. The message of Easter is not only that Christ is Risen, not only that suffering is not the last word, not only that God gives new life, but this: Nothing is impossible with God.

The homily was followed by the Prayers of the Faithful and Veneration of the Holy Cross. After the Eucharist, the symbolic body of the Lord Jesus and his sorrowful mother Mary was brought in a procession to the Church.