Veneration of the Mr. Pibb Cross
Before the cock crows you will refill me three times.
“The solemn veneration of the cross is an ancient rite of the Three Days, and during its solemnity the assembly considers how its own life and suffering, its own progress and failures of faith, impede the spread of Gospel joy into a broken world hungering for fullness and truth.”
- Martin Connell, Eternity Today: On the Liturgical Year (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006)
“The body of the church still groans under the burden of sin, but the Good Friday liturgy prepares it for the newness of life offered in God’s presence.”
“The Church is the Body of Christ on Earth, and the wood of the cross venerated on Good Friday is the ritual object that suggests that the Body of Christ is still one with Christ in suffering and death.”
“If possible, the cross for veneration should be one that is prominent in the liturgical space of the local assembly throughout the year, so that those whose lips or hands touch the wood of the cross come to see their own lives of suffering and resurrection wedded to that wood of Christ.”
“As with the footwashing, so with the veneration: it would be easier and faster to not invite the entire assembly to participate in the annual rite, but the health of the community of faith is jeopardized if only a few members are invited into the ritual action.”
“On Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the church has looked at death squarely, and only with that done can anyone be prepared for love.”
“On this day of solemn rememberance of the gravity of Jesus’ death and the efficacy of it for human life and salvation, the general intercessions reflect the ways in which humanity intercedes for help in following God’s will.”
“Unlike Passion Sunday, when the passion narrative of the Gospel reading for Good Friday varies according to the three-year cycle, every year the Gospel reading for Good Friday is the passion from the Gospel of John. The Christology of the fourth Gospel is the highest of the canonical Gospels, so fitting for the Good Friday context.”
“The whole mystery celebrated during the Three Days is ultimately that of the power of the Holy Spirit.”
“If we ignore death - as a church, a society, or as individuals - we suffer more.”
“As at the end of the Holy Thursday liturgy, so here on Good Friday: “All depart in silence. The altar is stripped at a convenient time.””
