10:00 am Stations of the Cross for Children
2:00 pm Stations of the Cross
3:00 pm Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday
The Solemn Liturgy on Good Friday falls into four parts:
1. Scripture Readings: We begin with the Liturgy of the Word. We recount and reflect on our Lord’s Passion through the reading of holy scripture, hymns, and preaching.
2. Solemn Prayers of Intercession: There follows a series of prayers for the whole church and the world. These are ancient in form, from the earliest recorded observances of Good Friday.
3. The Veneration of the Cross: We then venerate “the wood of the cross.” It is a devotion of our gratitude for Jesus’ death on the cross. At the appropriate time you may come forward to the cross to genuflect and kiss it. During this time the choir will sing the Reproaches which recall Jesus’ agony, not in physical pain, but in the pain of rejection by those he has come to save.
4. Holy Communion: The liturgy concludes with Holy Communion, the final opportunity to receive the Sacrament until the first Mass of Easter. We have entered as fully as possible into the saving death and Passion of our Lord. First, in our minds as we listened to the Word; then with our wills, in exercising the love Jesus taught us by praying for all people; in our emotions, in grateful veneration of His Cross; and finally by our sacramental union with this Victim of the Cross in Holy Communion. By so entering into His Passion and death, we are carried along to the glory of His resurrection.