Friday, April 18, 2014

Good Friday

  • Good Friday is a day of commemoration of the passion, suffering and death on the cross of Jesus Christ.
  • Good Friday is also called Feria VI in Parasceve (Latin: paraskeue or preparation which is the preparation that was made on the sixth day for the Sabbath which can be read in Mark 15:42) in the Roman Missal.
  • Good Friday is also called he hagia kai megale paraskeue or the Holy and Great Friday in the Greek Liturgy.
  • Good Friday is Holy Friday in Romance Languages.
  • Good Friday is Charfreitag or Karfreitag or Sorrowful Friday or Black Friday in German.
  • Good Friday is a development from an older name, “God’s Friday”or "Gottes Freitag" and it is from the German "Gute Freitag"
  • Good Friday is called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons which is how it is still known in Denmark.
  • Good Friday is called the "Great Friday" by many Orthodox Christians.
  • Good Friday is "Good" not because of the suffering and death of Jesus but it appropriately marked the dramatic culmination of God’s plan to save all sinners from their sins.
  • Good Friday is a day wherein many people attend church services and take part in the Acts of Reparation to Jesus Christ or the Station of the Cross and there are also re-enactments of the penance of Jesus Christ by going as far as crucifying themselves on the cross. The practice of crucifixion is a form of cruel and disgraceful method of execution which first began among the Persians and Alexander the Great introduced the practice to Egypt and Carthage and the Romans have possibly learned it from the Carthaginians. 
  • Good Friday mass is called the Mass of the Presanctified because Communion which had already been consecrated on Holy Thursday is given to the people and Good Friday masses are held before 3pm or 15:00 symbolizing the time that Jesus Christ died on the cross and people observe at 3pm a moment of silence and solemnity. 
  • Good Friday also developed the practice of Adoration of the Cross which was adopted in the 7th century by the Church in Rome from the Church in Jerusalem where a fragment of wood believed to be the Lord's cross, discovered by St. Helen (mother of emperor Constantine) while on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 326, had been venerated every year on Good Friday since the 4th century.
Crucifixion by Gabriel Wüger (1829–1892)
References:

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