Good Friday meditation, by Jim Russo

With great reverence, I come to church services on Good Friday to symbolically be with You in Your moment of agony. I am moved by the stark solemnity of the service, and fight to keep from weeping in public. I think to myself, how cruel it was for You to die such a painful death-- if only I could have been there with You; surely I would have fought against those who persecuted and crucified You. I leave the church with the phrase, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and I nod my head in agreement, “Yes, Father,” I think to myself, “forgive them...forgive them, for surely they can not know how deeply they hurt You by nailing Your Son naked to the cross.”

Bathed in the sense of my own holiness, I come home, not realizing the true part that I have played in Your agony. I am the one who has cleverly constructed and crowned You with thorns by thinking ill of others. I am the one whose tongue lashes out vulgarity, slander and mockery, which rips at Your flesh. I am the one who drives the nails into Your hands and feet, with my self-centered, thoughtless actions. And it is I who pierces Your side with my indignation for my lot in life.

Please forgive them...forgive me, for I know not what I have done.

(Good Friday, 2001)