26 March 2027 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” John 19:30
Today the Church does not celebrate Mass. The tabernacle stands open and empty, the altar is stripped bare, the bells are silent. On this one day of the year the Church gathers not to offer the sacrifice in sacramental form but to stand at the foot of the Cross where it was offered once for all. The first reading is the fourth Song of the Suffering Servant, written centuries before Christ: a man “despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity,” who goes silent “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.” And the prophet tells us why: “he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” The Church has always read this song as the clearest picture of Good Friday in the whole Old Testament. The Psalm puts on our lips the words Jesus himself prayed on the cross in St Luke's Gospel: “Into your hand I commit my spirit.”
The Letter to the Hebrews shows us who is suffering. He is “a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God,” and yet he is not distant from us: “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” In the days of his flesh he “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears,” and “although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” That obedience, carried to the end, makes him “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” So the reading ends with an invitation that fits this afternoon exactly: “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness.” The Cross is that throne of grace.
Then we hear the Passion according to St John, read every Good Friday. John shows Jesus not as a victim dragged along but as the King who goes freely to his throne. In the garden across the Kidron he steps forward and asks: “Whom are you looking for?” When he answers “I am he,” the soldiers step back and fall to the ground. He heals the ear Peter has cut, and he goes with them. Before Annas he speaks openly; Peter, warming himself at the charcoal fire, denies him three times. Before Pilate he speaks of a kingdom “not from this world” and of the truth, and Pilate asks: “What is truth?” He is scourged, crowned with thorns, clothed in purple, and shown to the crowd: “Here is the man!” Carrying the cross by himself, he goes out to Golgotha. Over his head Pilate writes in Hebrew, Latin and Greek: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” The soldiers cast lots for his seamless tunic. From the cross he gives his mother to the beloved disciple and the disciple to his mother. He says “I am thirsty,” receives the sour wine on a branch of hyssop, and says: “It is finished.” Then he bows his head and hands over his spirit. A soldier pierces his side, and at once blood and water flow out. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus bind his body with spices and lay it in a new tomb in a garden.
Who is responsible for this death? The Church answers clearly. It is not “the Jews” of then, nor the Jewish people of today: the Second Vatican Council teaches that what happened in the Passion “cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today” (Nostra Aetate 4). When St John writes “the Jews,” he usually means the Temple authorities of that time; Jesus, his mother and all the Apostles were Jews. The Catechism says that all sinners were the authors of Christ's Passion, and that we Christians bear the heavier responsibility when we crucify him again by our sins (Catechism 597–598). So we do not point a finger today. We strike our breast. And we discover that the Cross is not first of all a crime but a gift: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). Love has gone to the end. “It is finished” is not a cry of defeat but the word of a work completed: the Father's will done, the Scriptures fulfilled, the world redeemed.
Theme: “It is finished.”
The Servant wounded for us, the King on the Cross, the fountain from his side, and the high priest who sympathizes with our weakness.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24
Apply: Look at a crucifix for five minutes today and say slowly: for me.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” Psalm 22:1
“Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”” John 19:19
Apply: Pray Psalm 22 today, the psalm Jesus prayed on the cross, from beginning to end.
“On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.” Zechariah 13:1
“Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.” John 19:34
Apply: Thank God today for your Baptism and for every Communion you have received.
“Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.” Isaiah 53:4
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15–16
Apply: Bring one burden to the Cross today and leave it there; and visit or call someone who is suffering.
The Cross is not defeat but love completed: the Servant, the King and the Priest give their life for us.
No one people is to blame; all sinners caused his Passion, and all are invited to his mercy.
Take-home resolution: Keep the fast, adore the Cross, and forgive one person from the heart today.
Dear brothers and sisters, look at our church today. The altar is bare. The tabernacle is empty and its door stands open. There are no flowers, no bells, no Mass. Everything is stripped away so that only one thing remains: the Cross. Today we stand where Mary stood, at the foot of the Cross.
Seven hundred years before Christ, Isaiah saw him: he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). Like a lamb led to the slaughter, he did not open his mouth. When we look at the crucifix, we must say: that is what my sin cost. And that is how much I am loved.
St John shows us that Jesus is not a helpless victim. In the garden he steps forward: whom are you looking for? I am he. Before Pilate he speaks of the truth. He carries his own cross. Above his head is written: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. The Cross is his throne. He reigns by giving his life.
Who killed Jesus? Not a people. The Church teaches that we must never blame the Jewish people for his death. All sinners caused his Passion; I did, you did (Catechism 598). So today we do not point at others. We strike our own breast. And we hear him say from the cross: Father, forgive them.
From the cross he gives us his mother: here is your mother (John 19:27). Then he says: it is finished, bows his head and hands over his spirit (John 19:30). The soldier's spear opens his side, and blood and water flow: the Eucharist and Baptism, the Church born from the heart of Christ.
Soon we will come forward to adore the Cross. As you bend to kiss it, give him your sins, your sorrows and your dead. He is the high priest who sympathizes with our weakness. Let us approach the throne of grace with boldness (Hebrews 4:16). We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world. Amen.
Children, today the church is very quiet and the altar is bare, because we remember that Jesus died on the cross for us. He loved us so much that he gave his whole life.
When you kiss the cross today, say in your heart: thank you, Jesus. I love you. I am sorry for my sins.
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 for ever and ever. Amen. Let us also pray: Lord Jesus, King on the Cross, by your wounds we are healed. We adore you and we bless you, because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world. Let the blood and water from your side wash us and feed us, keep us near your Mother at the foot of the Cross, and bring us with you to the joy of Easter. Amen.
On this day, when no Mass is celebrated, the Church simply listens, and then kneels before the cross. Isaiah’s fourth Servant Song speaks centuries in advance of one who bears the sins of many, and it is told by people who are astonished to find that he suffered for them. Hebrews looks inside that suffering, and sees a high priest with loud cries and tears, who can feel our weakness. John tells the Passion itself, and in his telling the prisoner is a king, who goes to his death knowing what he does and hands over his spirit at the end.
Psalm 31 gives us the words from the cross recorded by Luke: “Into your hand I commit my spirit”. The readings together answer the question of the day: what is this death? The key words are bore, obedience and finished.
Setting.
This is the fourth and greatest Servant Song, from the exile in Babylon, in the sixth century before Christ. Its form is unusual. God speaks at the start and at the end. In between, a shocked “we” confesses: we thought he was being punished by God, and we were wrong. The Servant himself never speaks a word, and the song says so twice (53:7).
Who was he? The text does not say, and the Ethiopian official asks the same in Acts 8:34. Jewish interpreters have often understood the Servant as the people of Israel, who suffered so much among the nations, and others have looked to a prophet or a righteous figure. Christians confess that the song finds its full meaning in Jesus. The Church can respect the Jewish reading while proclaiming her own faith.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.” (52:13)
The song begins from the end. Before we hear of the wounds, God tells us the outcome. John’s “lifted up” (3:14; 12:32) uses this language: the cross is already an exaltation.
“He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;” (53:3)
Nothing in him drew the eye. This lets anyone rejected or disfigured know that God has been there before them.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” (53:5)
The verse at the centre of the poem. “Made us whole” renders shālôm. The Church teaches that Christ’s death is a true expiation for sin, and that its source is love: in giving up his Son for our sins, God “manifests that his plan for us is one of benevolent love” (CCC 604).
“like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” (53:7)
These are the very words the Ethiopian was reading when Philip met him, and Philip began from them to tell him about Jesus (Acts 8:32–35). The silence of Jesus before Pilate (John 19:9) fits this verse.
“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.” (53:10)
A hard verse, and the Hebrew in vv. 10–11 is difficult. It does not say that God took pleasure in cruelty. It says that even this was not outside his plan, which is to bring life out of it, as the rest of the verse shows: “he shall see his offspring”. See CCC 599–600.
“Out of his anguish he shall see light;” (53:11)
A note on the text. “Light” is missing from the traditional Hebrew text, but is found in the Greek and in the Isaiah scrolls from Qumran, and the NRSV follows these. It is one of the places where the Dead Sea Scrolls have helped translators. The song’s hope reaches beyond death.
“yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (53:12)
Compare Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them”. At the Last Supper Jesus applies this verse to himself (Luke 22:37).
How the Church reads it.
No Old Testament passage is more present in the New Testament’s account of the Passion: see Matthew 8:17, Luke 22:37, Acts 8:32–35, Romans 4:25 and 1 Peter 2:22–25. St Jerome says that Isaiah should be called an evangelist rather than a prophet (in substance). The Catechism teaches that the Scriptures foretold this plan through the death of “the righteous one, my Servant” (CCC 601), and that by his obedience unto death Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant (CCC 615). It adds that this was a mystery of universal redemption, and that there is not, never has been and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer (CCC 605).
Setting.
The author of Hebrews is not named. Origen’s remark that God alone knows who wrote it has often been repeated, and the letter’s elegant Greek is unlike Paul’s. It seems to address Christians tempted to tire and drift away. Its great theme is that Jesus is the high priest. The two pieces chosen today show how he is qualified: he has come all the way down to us, and he has passed through to the Father.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (4:15)
He is one with us in everything except sin (Council of Chalcedon; CCC 467, 540). Sinlessness does not make his testing lighter. One who never gives way feels the full weight of the pull.
“Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness,” (4:16)
On this day the Church does this literally, walking up to kiss the wood of the cross.
“with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” (5:7)
Hebrews may be thinking of Gethsemane, though it does not name it. He prayed to be saved from death, and he died. How then “was he heard”? He was brought out of death, in the Resurrection. The Catechism says that all the troubles of humanity are summed up in this cry, and that the Father answers it beyond all hope by raising his Son (CCC 2606).
“Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered;” (5:8)
“How much more reason have we sinful creatures to learn obedience”, the Catechism says on this verse (CCC 2825).
How the Church reads it.
This reading guards the Church against two errors: a Christ who did not really suffer, and a Christ who is only a suffering man. Here he is the Son and he is in tears. Hebrews’ later teaching that he offered himself once for all (9:26–28) is why there is no other priesthood apart from his. The priests of the Church share in it, and his one sacrifice is made present in the Eucharist (CCC 1545). Today the Church does what this text encourages, and asks for mercy, and for grace in time of need.
Setting.
In the Roman Rite the Passion according to John is read every Good Friday. John knows the same events as the other evangelists, but he tells them from another height. He does not tell of the prayer of agony or the cry of being forsaken. Jesus comes forward to meet his captors, he carries the cross by himself (19:17), and he bows his head only when all is finished. This does not deny the pain. It shows the love that goes through it with open eyes.
Pilate was the Roman prefect of Judea (about AD 26–36), and crucifixion was a Roman punishment. Caiaphas was high priest at this time, and Annas was his father-in-law, a former high priest of great influence. John says “the Jews” often in this Passion. Most of the time he plainly means the Temple authorities and those around them. Many scholars think that the word also carries the pain of later quarrels between John’s community and the synagogue. It must never be heard as a charge against the Jewish people, then or now (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 597). Jesus, his mother and his first disciples were Jews, and John himself quotes Jesus: “salvation is from the Jews” (4:22).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they stepped back and fell to the ground.” (18:6)
They came with lanterns and torches to find the light of the world (8:12).
““Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”” (18:11)
Here John’s Passion echoes the prayer in the garden told by the other Gospels. The cup comes from the Father’s hand, and so he takes it (CCC 607).
“Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold,” (18:18)
The Greek word for charcoal fire is found in only one other place in the New Testament: at the lakeside, where the Risen Lord will ask Peter three times, “Do you love me?” (21:9). Three denials at one such fire; three professions of love at another.
““You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”” (18:37)
The prisoner has become the judge. The next verse has Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”, spoken to the Truth himself (14:6). The Creed names “Pontius Pilate” so that we remember this happened at one real place and time.
“Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”” (19:5)
Ecce homo in the Latin. Pilate perhaps means, “Look at this poor figure.” John means more: this is what humanity looks like when it loves to the end. The verse also recalls the “man of suffering” of Isaiah 53:3.
“The chief priests answered, “We have no king but the emperor.”” (19:15)
These are the words of the chief priests at a moment of pressure, and they are the dramatic high point of the trial. They do not speak for the Jewish people, whose prayers have always called God their King.
“It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”” (19:19)
In Latin this gives the letters INRI on our crucifixes. Written in three languages (19:20), it announces more than Pilate intends: in a sense, the first proclamation of the king to that whole world.
“now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top.” (19:23)
St Cyprian sees in this undivided robe the unity of the Church, which must not be torn (in substance). Some also recall the high priest’s seamless robe described by Josephus.
““Woman, here is your son.”” (19:26)
He called her “Woman” at Cana too (2:4), when his hour had not yet come. It has come now. The Church sees more here than a son’s care for his mother: the Second Vatican Council and St John Paul II read this as the gift of Mary as mother to the disciple, and so to the Church (Lumen Gentium 58; Redemptoris Mater 23; CCC 964).
““It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (19:30)
He bows his head first, and then dies. In a Gospel where no one takes his life from him (10:18), even this is an action.
“Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.” (19:34)
John insists that an eyewitness saw it (19:35). St John Chrysostom sees water for Baptism and blood for the Eucharist, and the Church formed from Christ’s side as Eve from the side of Adam (in substance; the Liturgy of the Hours gives this passage on Good Friday). The Second Vatican Council and the Catechism make the same reading their own (Sacrosanctum Concilium 5; CCC 766, 1225).
“Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.” (19:41)
The Passion begins and ends in a garden. Only John tells us so. Many readers recall Eden, and the Risen Lord will be taken for a gardener (20:15). Joseph, a secret disciple, and Nicodemus, who first came by night, step into the open when it can gain them nothing.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism draws together the meaning of this death: it is love “to the end” that gives Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation (CCC 616); this is the one sacrifice that completes and surpasses all others (CCC 613–614); and the Council of Trent teaches that by his most holy Passion on the wood of the cross he merited justification for us (CCC 617). Jesus knew and loved each of us in his Passion (CCC 478). St Augustine says that the cross became a teacher’s chair, from which he taught us how to love (in substance). So Good Friday is not a funeral, for those who kneel before the cross already know how the story continues. It is the hour of the victory of love, even if today we keep silent before the price.
Who was responsible for the death of Jesus?
The personal guilt of those involved is known to God alone. Pilate condemned him, Roman soldiers crucified him, and some of the authorities pressed for it. “The one who handed me over” (19:11) may mean Judas or Caiaphas; interpreters differ. The Church teaches firmly that neither all Jews of that time nor Jews today can be charged with what was done in his Passion (Nostra Aetate 4; CCC 597). She teaches something harder for us: sinners were the authors of his sufferings, and so Christians must not lay on others what belongs to their own sins (CCC 598).
Did the Father want his Son to suffer?
The Father does not take delight in pain. He sent his Son in love (John 3:16), and the Son went in love and obedience (John 10:17–18). In a world of sin, love that goes to the end meets the cross. His death is a true sacrifice of expiation for our sins. Human beings did what they did, and God permitted it and brought salvation from it (CCC 599–600, 604–606).
Did he die on Passover day or the day before?
Matthew, Mark and Luke present the Last Supper as a Passover meal (Mark 14:12), which puts his death on the feast. John places his death on the Day of Preparation (18:28; 19:14, 31), around the time the lambs were killed for the feast, and so links him to the Lamb of God (1:29). Scholars have proposed several solutions, and none is agreed. Pope Benedict XVI, in his book Jesus of Nazareth, inclined to John’s dating. All the Gospels agree that he died on a Friday, on the eve of a Sabbath, at Passover time, and all see his death in the light of Passover.
There is no Mass in the Roman Rite today. The Church keeps the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord, usually about three in the afternoon. The priest, in red, enters in silence and prostrates himself or kneels before the bare altar. Then come the Liturgy of the Word, the Solemn Intercessions, the Adoration of the Cross and Holy Communion from the hosts consecrated yesterday. In the Intercessions the Church prays for the whole world, and also for the Jewish people, to whom God spoke first, that they may grow in love of his name and faithfulness to his covenant. At the Adoration the cross is shown with the words “Behold the wood of the Cross”, and the people come forward to venerate it. It is a day of fasting and abstinence (Code of Canon Law, canon 1251). In many places, the day’s collection helps the Christians of the Holy Land, and the Way of the Cross is prayed. Everyone leaves in silence, for there is no dismissal.