Death by love... (Good Friday)

O crux, ave spes unica! 

(Hail, O cross, our only hope!)

GOOD FRIDAY

Sweet the timber, sweet the iron,

Sweet the burden that they bear! (Hymn:  Faithful Cross)

"Holy Friday is the culminating moment of love. The death of Jesus, who

on the cross abandons Himself to the Father to offer salvation to the whole world, expresses the love given to the end, without end.  A love that intends

to embrace all, no one excluded. A love that extends to every time and place:

an inexhaustible source of salvation from which each one of us, sinners,

can draw. If God has shown His supreme love in Jesus’ death, then we also,

regenerated by the Holy Spirit, can and must love one another."

 - Pope Francis, Wednesday Audience, 23 March 2016

"Nature is in mourning covered with darkness during the Holy Hour of the first Good Friday.  The chants of the heavenly Jerusalem are interrupted.  The entire court of Heaven waits in order to receive the last throb of the Heart of the Man-God, the victim of Golgotha.

Fervent loving souls, 

we are truly at the summit of Calvary: 

it is the Holy Hour!

A loud voice resounds in the heights, a voice that says: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.'  And bending His lacerated Head, Jesus Crucified dies of love.  It is His Heart which out of love for us has brought Him to death.  All glory to His loving Heart which gave us life and which now is stilled in death!"- Fr Mateo Crawley-Boevey  

Image above:  Christ Crucified ~ Viktor Vasnetsov (1896)

Souls have all the same price,

which is that of the Precious Blood of Jesus."

Blessed Charles de Foucauld

"Do grant, oh my God,

that when my lips approach Yours to kiss You, 
I may taste the gall that was given to You;

when my shoulders lean against Yours,

make me feel Your scourging; 
when my flesh is united with Yours, in the Holy Eucharist, 

make me feel Your passion;

when my head comes near Yours,

make me feel Your thorns;
when my heart is close to Yours,

make me feel Your spear."

St. Gemma Galgani

“We adore Thee, O Christ, and we praise Thee ...

because by Thy Holy Cross Thou has Redeemed the World.”

"Your love is my only martyrdom.
The more I feel it burning in me,
The more my soul desires you…
Jesus, make me die of love for you." 

St Thérèse of Lisieux

Divine Mercy Novena begins today
 Click here: DIVINE MERCY NOVENA PRAYERS