Step inside the solemnity of the Good Friday Liturgy with Father Stephen Sanchez and witness how the Church's traditions invite us into a journey of reflection and profound understanding. Together, we unveil the mystagogical significance of the Good Friday liturgy and discover how this sacred day bears the weight of our salvation history.
Examine this particular day of the Triduum, where sometimes silence speaks louder than words, and traditional aspects of the liturgy are notably absent. Father Sanchez guides us through the liturgy's powerful themes, including the passion narrative from John's Gospel, the symbolism of blood and water, and the birth of the Church. Feel the gravity of Christ's sacrifice anew as we delve into the depth of the passion narrative and reflect on the absence which would have followed his death.
The transformative power of the Holy Spirit comes alive as we discuss the personal spiritual encounters clergy and laity have during these intimate celebrations. Join us and enrich your faith with the timeless wisdom of these pivotal moments in the Catholic tradition.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
Step inside the solemnity of the Good Friday Liturgy with Father Stephen Sanchez and witness how the Church's traditions invite us into a journey of reflection and profound understanding. Together, we unveil the mystagogical significance of the Good Friday liturgy and discover how this sacred day bears the weight of our salvation history.
Examine this particular day of the Triduum, where sometimes silence speaks louder than words, and traditional aspects of the liturgy are notably absent. Father Sanchez guides us through the liturgy's powerful themes, including the passion narrative from John's Gospel, the symbolism of blood and water, and the birth of the Church. Feel the gravity of Christ's sacrifice anew as we delve into the depth of the passion narrative and reflect on the absence which would have followed his death.
The transformative power of the Holy Spirit comes alive as we discuss the personal spiritual encounters clergy and laity have during these intimate celebrations. Join us and enrich your faith with the timeless wisdom of these pivotal moments in the Catholic tradition.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
Welcome to the my Friend the Friar podcast and thanks for listening. If you like my Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us. If you haven't already done so, and if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again and God bless. Welcome to the podcast. You're joining me and my friend the Friar, father Stephen Sanchez, a discolzed Carmelite priest. Good morning, father. Good morning. I don't know why it's so funny. You're looking well this morning. Thank you.
Speaker 1:The light coming in the window.
Speaker 2:It's the light of the Lord, it's the spirit that's there. It's just spring, spring sun. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:Okay, we are today. We're interrupting your regularly scheduled program. We were talking about the last four things in the previous episode.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Next week we'll keep talking. We'll finish talking about the last four things.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But we're going to talk about Good Friday and the beauty that is just this miracle that we celebrate this week.
Speaker 2:Yes, as we get closer to the Truduum and this is what sort of made me think about it We've talked about the first episode that we talked about. We talked about Good Friday. I want to talk about the Passion of the Lord. We had spoken about it in our first episode on the Sacred Truduum, which was, I found out, was released on August 2nd 2022. It's been a minute.
Speaker 1:It's been so long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was the first episode that we released.
Speaker 1:It was like our pilot episode, to see if we could put this together.
Speaker 2:If you would like to have a general introduction to the Sacred Truduum, you can find that general introduction in that previous or that first episode that we released. I think it's titled Sacred Truduum. As we're getting closer to Easter, I wanted to focus on Good Friday, I think one of the things that we've spoken about. When we were preparing for the Sacred Truduum, we talked about, well, we should probably do one separate episode for each one of the days of the Truduum. Here we are, two years later, doing the one on Good Friday.
Speaker 1:It was one of those. Let's write it down.
Speaker 2:Let's write it down and we'll do it later.
Speaker 1:We're good at that, by the way, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just such an INFP.
Speaker 2:That's so, anyway, in this episode of, what I Would Like To Do is I'd like to focus on the liturgy of Friday, of the Passionate of the Lord, or as it is commonly referred to as Good Friday. But before I review this liturgy and its importance to us as participants in the Truduum, I want to recall some of the teachings of the Catechism that we had gone over before. The first citation is from the Catechism number 1095, where the Catechism tells us the Church, the community of disciples, us the bride of Christ. So the Church rereads and relives the great events of salvation history, which she makes present in the today of her liturgy. And then the second quotation from the Catechism is from number 1168,.
Speaker 2:The Easter Truduum is, for the Church, its source of light, the new age of resurrection, a foretaste of the kingdom. That has entered into time. And there's no one to cite those two, because there is an experience, a personal experience, and that we enter into these liturgies. That's part of the mystagogy right. You experience something, and what you experience, then you later reflect upon the significance of what you've experienced.
Speaker 2:That used to be part of the whole mystagogical teaching of the Catechism right, and so I've said before, like on the Easter vigil, part of the mystagogy is the darkness of the Church before the blessing of the fire, and feeling that anxiety of darkness, right. So in Good Friday there's also a mystagogical experience of the person and it leads, or it should lead, to a deeper reflection as to what it is that I'm experiencing. So, as we said before, then the sacred Truduum, which begins with the Mass of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Thursday, and then that continues with the Friday of the Passion of the Lord, which we call Good Friday, and then the vigil of Easter in the Holy Night, which we call Easter vigil. As we said before, it's supposed to be understood as one liturgy that takes place in three days, or three large parts, and so the faithful are challenged to enter into a liturgical and a mystagogical meditation of the Passion and the Resurrection of the Lord. And that's how we make it present, right, we reread and we relive this truth, this mystery of Christ's Passion.
Speaker 1:And for Easter vigil. It's one of the Maybe the only time it doesn't count for the Sunday obligation, because it's the same liturgy that started on Thursday. Or if you go to the Easter vigil, does it count for your Sunday obligation? Yeah, it does, it counts.
Speaker 2:It's the vigil of Easter. It's different readings, but it's still because it's the vigil. It counts as your Easter obligation. So those that go the old days when we used to go at midnight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's what I was saying. I was thinking about midnight Mass and I was like, well, but it's not the same liturgy. And then I kind of wondered too everyone gets baptized. Do you still go the next day just to be a part of the crowd, or?
Speaker 2:are you done for the week? Yeah, there's no law that says you can't go to more than one liturgy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Then. So, since we're diving into the middle part here and the passion of the Lord, on Friday or Friday of the Lord's Passion, when people come into this celebration those who participated in the previous day's liturgy, the Mass of the Lord's Supper so they enter into the sacred space of the church and find that the altar is completely bare. It's been stripped of everything. There's no candles, no altar cloths, nothing. And if the tabernacle is in the church, the tabernacle, the doors are open. There's no vigil light by the tabernacle, there's no light of the signifying the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and so where the reserved hosts were kept, in the tabernacle, they're gone, they're not visible. What they call in the altar of repose is where they're put. On Holy Thursday.
Speaker 1:Okay, where is that? In the building.
Speaker 2:It can be anywhere. It can be in the sacristy, it can be somewhere, it can be outside the building. But usually what happens on Holy Thursday is after the Holy Thursday liturgy, and you've had the time to spend with Jesus in the garden, there in the Eucharistic adoration, with the Blessed Sacrament, then after midnight or whenever the church or the parish decides, and after everything everybody leaves, then they take the consecrated hosts, they take the suborum and they put it somewhere where the public does not have access to, and so that's usually what they call the altar of repose. So that's where you have your vigil candle, there before the Blessed Sacrament, so anyway. So then when you come in on Friday, there is this feeling of something's missing. And so, since the altar is stripped, there's no candles, there's no altar clause, the tabernacle is empty, there's nothing, and so there is a feeling of emptiness. The whole liturgical feeling is that the Lord has been taken from us, he's now in prison and then awaiting, he's waiting for his trial. So you come in and you really feel the emptiness of the building. You feel and that's part of the mystic goji that feeling of there's something missing, there's something askew, there's something not right. And so when you come into Friday's liturgy.
Speaker 2:The liturgy is divided into three parts. There is the liturgy of the word, which is the reading of the passion narrative. There is the adoration of the cross and I have a problem with that word of adoration, but we'll talk about that later and then there is the third part, which is holy comedian. So the liturgy is customarily, or was customarily, celebrated at 3 pm, the hour of the Lord's crucifixion, but for pastoral reasons the celebration can be held later, and this back a long time ago. So, because I am old, a long time ago the liturgies were always at 3 o'clock on Good Friday, because that was during the time when most businesses nobody went to work.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say, yeah, people used to get Good Friday off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get Good Friday off and so nobody went to work. And so just back in those days when stores weren't open on Sunday, those days, and so everybody was, just there was no work on Good Friday, so everybody would go, could go to their liturgical celebration of Good Friday. But because the culture has changed, the society has changed. We work all the time now and everybody's busy all the time now, so now the pastor can choose to celebrate it later.
Speaker 2:Usually it's after six because people go to work still and stuff, and so usually maybe around seven, even later than that, and they'll have that, the liturgy of Friday of the Lord's Passion. So when it starts, people have assembled in time for that and you're sitting in this church. That feels weird because again, things are missing, things are not the way they usually are. So the priest and the other ministers, they come in in silence and they're dressed in red vestments and then they come in and then the assembly kneels as the priests and the ministers prostrate themselves, face down before this stripped altar, and so remembering also that the altar itself is also a symbol of Christ.
Speaker 2:So the stripped altar is again you could think of or meditate or reflect on the stripping of Christ in his Passion, right? So part of the meditation or reflection, or the feeling or spirit of the celebrant and the assembly is that Christ has been taken from us, he's been arrested, he will be tried, he will be condemned to death, and this is a moment for us, as celebrants and assembly, to reflect on the mystery of the passion True God, true man. It's a feeling of awe, it's a feeling of bewilderment, confusion, pathos all rolled into one, and so there's all these different feelings, emotions, affect, reflection, meditation. It's going on all at once. While the priests and the deacons are faced down before the alternate. Your prostrate, because your prostrate before this mystery that is the passion of Christ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and all the vestment colors always have a different meaning or intention behind them. So what specifically is red?
Speaker 2:supposed Red is always associated with the Holy Spirit, right, so even we use it for martyrs, but it doesn't necessarily reflect blood. It can be, and that's usually the association, but it is through the grace of the Holy Spirit that the martyrs suffer. It is through the grace of the Holy Spirit that we are celebrating the passion, or that the passion has occurred, right, so that this is part of God's plan, kind of God's greater design, right, and it is through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:So we're in red. I love the mystic ogie. When you don't know, when you don't have a relationship with God, or when it's not well formed, even if you don't have catechesis and you don't know what's going on, this can all be very the non-good version of cultish. You know what I mean. It seems very ritualistic, very weird, but if you understand, like you're describing the signs and the symbols. Yeah, man, it's impactful.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and it is a very, very impactful liturgy, right, if you allow yourself to enter into the true to one right. Yeah, so after the ministers are in silence, they're faced down before the stripped altar, before this wonder. That is the passion, god's design. Then the priests and the ministers, they rise right and then they go to their places. There's no greeting, there's not. The Lord be with you. There's not, in the name of the Father. So there's no greeting because, again, it is a continuation of the liturgy that began on Holy Thursday, or the Mass of the Lord's Supper. So the presider then reads an opening prayer and the opening prayers. There's two opening prayers, or is it an option? There's the two options for the opening prayer. One opening prayer reflects upon Christ's suffering and that opening prayer is remember your mercies, o Lord, and, with your eternal protection, sanctify your servants for whom Christ, your Son, by the shedding of his blood, established the paschal mystery, who lives and reigns forever and ever, amen. So there's the idea of the great, great truth, of the passion which is so far beyond our understanding, but which is part of our faith, right and the truth that we all onto. Or he can read the other opening prayer, which expands a little bit more on the paschal mystery, and that prayer is O God, who, by the passion of Christ, your Son, our Lord, abolished the death inherited from ancient sin by every succeeding generation, grant that, just as being conformed to him, we have borne by the law of nature the image of man, the man of earth. So by the sanctification of grace we may bear the image of the man of heaven, the Christ our Lord. Amen. So that touches upon the fallenness, right. So the fall infers in the fall of Adam and Eve, and the whole idea of original sin and the whole idea of the inability to be faithful to the covenant, all this stuff is sort of inferred there, right, and that'll be expanded on.
Speaker 2:Easter vigil we have all the readings from the from the Easter vigil. So after the opening prayer you have the first part of the liturgy, which is the liturgy of the Word. So the assembly then enters into the liturgy of the Word, and these readings are always the same, regardless of whether you're A, you're B, you're C, or you're one or you're two of A, b or C. It's always these readings and the readings are. The first reading is always the reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 52, verse 13, through chapter 53, verse 12, which is known as the fourth song of the servant of Yahweh, or the fourth suffering servant song. And this is where we have that verse that says through his suffering, my servant shall justify many and their guilt he shall bear. So here we have the redemptive quality of Christ's suffering, that he is suffering for us, that he is suffering to justify us. So this is part of that theology, that part of that idea that is being presented.
Speaker 2:And then the second reading is always from the letter to the Hebrews, and this is where the author says we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.
Speaker 2:And so this is then again the idea that we have that in Jesus Christ to God, true man, the Messiah, that his suffering is a suffering for the justification of all, that he is a high priest who is still interceding for us.
Speaker 2:He is still high priest, he is the high priest and he continues to intercede for us at the right hand of the Father. And then we go to the gospel, which is always the gospel of John, which recounts the passion of Christ, in which the passion there from John, this is where, before Jesus dies, while he's suffering on the cross, he gives his mother to his disciple and his disciple to his mother, which for us is very important. There's something there. And then, after his death, there is the piercing of his side, followed by the flow of blood and water from his side, which, for us, then, we see as the signs of the Eucharist and baptism blood, eucharist, water, baptism, as well as the birth of the church. There's a sign and a symbol for us in that the blood and water, the sacraments, flowing from the side of Christ is basically the birth of the church, who is the new Eve that is coming from the side of the new Adam.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot going on there, yeah, so let's write this down and forget that we wrote it down. We should just talk one of these days about all of the signs that take place at the crucifixion from Genesis to crucifixion, because there's so much like all crammed in there and it's amazing.
Speaker 2:And so when we begin the liturgy of the word, there is no proclamation of the gospel, right? There's no, the Lord be with you and with your spirit. There's no a reading of the Holy Gospel according to again. So it feels off, it's different, it's a little jarring in that, okay, this is not the way we usually do liturgy, this is not the way we usually have a reading from the gospels.
Speaker 1:And there's no like alleluia, alleluia before the gospel or anything?
Speaker 2:Do they do that at the Easter vigil? It's been a minute since I've been okay Because like when they do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I get goosebumps like thinking about it when they do it for the when it's been missing, and then they do it.
Speaker 2:It's just on the vigil, the ringing of the bells addressing of the answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very beautiful thing too.
Speaker 2:So, like I said, so there's something jarring here, there's something different and we feel that something's off. And the narrator whoever the narrator, the narrator is, he just begins his narration of the gospel. He just, the narrator just says I should say he or she, because it can be a woman as well the narrator just says the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John, and that's the interest, that's it, that's introduction. So the reading of the passion, then, is usually divided into different parts. You have the narrator, that part of the narrator, you have the part of Jesus and you have the part of a reader.
Speaker 2:There's a reader one, sometimes there's a reader two and a reader three, depending on how they decide they're going to distribute those parts, because one is the woman by the fire, aren't you one of his or? And the other one is, so it depends, right? And then there is the crowd, or the chorus, which is the part of the entire assembly, all of us that are gathered there, right? So, again, this is this part is a bit jarring for all participants, right? Because we all feel a little skittish, a little sheepish when it comes the time to say crucify it, right, it feels weird that it makes me sick to my stomach, almost like I feel so bad, but it's like every time I see a crucifix to like I understand that's my sin holding him up there.
Speaker 2:Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Right, oh, but yeah, that's so there's.
Speaker 2:I love the reasoning behind all this participation and that, and as part of the mystic, the mystical experiences, I Enter deeper into the fact that it is my sinfulness or the sinfulness is the reason for the passion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love him. I'm the one calling for Barabbas.
Speaker 2:Yes, the one saying crucify him, yes, yes, yes. And so it's a little Strange, but I think it's. It's a beautiful thing also, in that we own Our respond, we make ourselves responsible, right, and we own our, our brokenness, our sinfulness. So then we have all that. We have the quiet after his death, that all the assembly meals after he gives up the spirit, right after he dies. There's a, there's just a silent moment of Like how, how could this be? How could, how could this happen? How could, how could this design, this mysterious design of God to Come into the world, to take on our flesh and then to have Jesus, to God and to man, to to die? How could it be that we killed, we murdered the incarnation of love and mercy and forgiveness? How, how is that possible? Right? So there's this right.
Speaker 2:So then, after the reading and after the, we finish the, the reading of the passion.
Speaker 2:Then we turn to the second part of the liturgy of the, of the word, entitled the solemn intercession.
Speaker 2:So this is still the first part, which is a liturgy of the word, but the liturgy of the word is in two parts the passion, the reading of the passion, and then what we call, or what is entitled the solemn intercessions, and For a long time I was going like, okay, so what's going on here?
Speaker 2:There's something here, there's a connection here, and so it took me a while to figure out. Like there is sort of an intuitive logic, and that logic being that, since Christ has died for all Because that's what we're celebrating the the paschal mystery that he has come to justify us, he has come to to forgive us and reconcile us to the Father. So then there is an obligation for us as church, as community of believers, and we have an obligation to pray for, pray for all, to to intercede for all, to pray for the salvation of all, and so this is what the intercessions are about. So then we get to the intercessions, which are Led by a deacon, if there's a deacon present. If not, then a lay person goes to the anbo and they can either recite or sing the intercessions when they're sung.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Again, they're there, they can be chanted right, and so then we have the intercessory prayers. So the first interest search to pray. Prayer Is for the community of believers and the grace to be able to live out and practice the faith in peace and tranquility. Then, gradually, the prayers, or the intercessory prayers, and taking more and more people through the different levels or categories of beliefs. So there's for us believers.
Speaker 2:Then there is An intercession for the church the church be faithful, the church be guided, the church be protected. Then there is a prayer for the Pope, and then there's a prayer for all orders and degrees of the faithful, so priests, deacons, bishops, for all the, all the different parts of the church, the different Vocations within the church. Then there's an intercession or prayer for the catechumens, those that are, they're preparing themselves to enter into the church on the Easter vigil. And then there's a prayer for the unity of all Christians, for all those who believe in Jesus Christ, and there's a prayer for the Jewish people whom God first called, and then there's a prayer for those who do not believe in Christ, and then there's a prayer for those who do not believe in God, and then there's a prayer for those In public office. And then, finally, there's a prayer for all those who find themselves in tribulation.
Speaker 2:So those are the different peoples or degrees or categories of Prayers that are offered up, right. And then we get to the the end of that Solom intercessions, and then that's when the assembly gets ready to enter into the second part Of that liturgy, the three-part liturgy of the passion, the Friday of the passion of the Lord, and that is Liturgy of the adoration of the holy cross.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, before we go to the, before we move on, what's, what is so? You've? You've been, you've been celebrating, you've been a priest for a minute, yeah right, I can't begin to imagine how, how celebrating this every year has affected you in your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is there anything in particular Like that comes to mind, like the biggest, the biggest impact, the biggest influence doing this has had for you over the years?
Speaker 2:Because, like I, can choose to go and participate or not you don't have a choice, right and so every year you're forced to Contemplate these things in a way that you know a layperson wouldn't necessarily For me, excuse me, I think, for me, knowing that the church is empty, knowing that Christ is not present in the church, knowing that he's been reserved somewhere where nobody can see him or get to him, or, you know, there is no blessed sacrament in the church, so for me, I think that the nakedness of the church the altar is stripped, the altar is bare, there's nothing, there is not dressed, it's not ready for the celebration of the Eucharist, and I think, face down before the, the naked altar is always very, very convicting and moving, and I mean feeling repentance for my brokenness, feeling repentance for the, for my sin right, for my inability to be the disciple that I want to be or that God desires me to be.
Speaker 2:So all of that, for me, is it's right there at the beginning, and that has a lot to do with how we celebrate and the rest of that liturgy.
Speaker 1:As a priest, you only prostrate yourself in such a way at Good Friday in your ordination, right, correct. So does that ever come back into your mind?
Speaker 2:Yes, like connection. Yeah, yeah, that's the only time we prostrate ourselves and for, as a religious, when we make our solemn vows, we prostrate ourselves.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's tied even deeper yeah.
Speaker 2:As religious. Before make our vows, we prostrate also. And so yeah, there's. And I think the more we're cataclysm, the more person reads and studies, the deeper the mystery is, the deeper the wonder of what it is that we're celebrating, because earlier, not this year, last year, last year I was doing some reading and I read a book by Van Balthus on the Paschal Mystery which is like totally just blowing my mind and just what.
Speaker 2:And so it's just he's such a deep thinker and so I learned so much and just really made me appreciate more and more the mystery that it is that we celebrate so yeah, I think how great is that that you've been a priest for however many years now, and now, like last year, you grew deeper into your appreciation yes, my understanding or appreciation of the mystery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also as a carmelite in our area, I would imagine. Well, do you guys have the? Are you normally? I want to say farmed out? Do you go support other parishes or do you celebrate in your chapel?
Speaker 2:It depends on the community, and if we have obligations, if we have obligations, right then we'll go out and help. But, for example, at the monastery at Mary Lake, at the castle, when there was plenty enough of us, plenty of us, we would have the celebration there. We would have the celebration, we'd celebrate the tree to them there at the monastery, and people would come to join us on Thursday, friday and Saturday, the vigil and Easter Sunday as well. So we get to celebrate it that way, so as a community. So, depending where the community is right, we would celebrate so in Dallas, because right now we have an obligation to the parish here at St Mary of Carmel. Then the celebrations would be there. We still have our office, we pray our office together, right, but the liturgical celebrations would be at the parish, right. So we would be there to celebrate together with the parish.
Speaker 1:Have you ever had a trituum where it's just y'all like it's the church? Is empty on top of the emptiness that's already there.
Speaker 2:So it's like doubly empty. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And what is that?
Speaker 2:like.
Speaker 1:It's because, like, the first thing that comes in my head is like the abandonment of Jesus from the apostles, like he's all alone at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it is very touching, right, and I've also celebrated at parishes the tritum at parishes. So, yeah, they're different. Yeah, there's different flavor to it, a different tone, a different, if you want to say, color to it as well. It's different, right, when you have a large, large crowd, or you have a small crowd that you are familiar with and that you know and you're all committed right, you're all committed disciples. Whereas, like at a parish, sometimes you have a lot of people come, strangers, non-catholics, who come just to like let's go see the Catholics do their thing, right? So, like just, either they're hungry for liturgy or they just want to come see, like our ritual or whatever, right?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, well, I'm sure that can be. If somebody is hungry for liturgy or they're open it's experiencing, this can probably be quite effective, right, the Holy Spirit. No, yes, we always say we don't convert people. The Holy Spirit Jesus converts people.
Speaker 2:That's right, and so it's in these liturgies that it's really important to explain what it is that we're celebrating, because it's not just usually Catholics. Especially for Easter and Christmas, it's not just Catholics that are there. There's usually non-Catholics that are present to the parishes for some strange reason. I don't know why, but they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All right, we're going to split this into two little episodes, and the next when we come back here in a minute. We're going to talk about the. We're going to continue from the adoration of the Holy Cross. Maybe you'll explain why, in your opinion, it might should say veneration of the Holy Cross but we'll get there next time. So thank you for this, and thank you everyone who joined us. Thank you, We'll see you in just a minute. Bye, bye.