Good Friday – Year A
Deacon Tom Vert
Preached: April 3, 2026
These past six weeks we have been talking about Beauty in our Lenten mission…the beauty of prayer, the Bible, Mass, the Rosary and Confession.
One key link in all these of course is Jesus!!
The one who we pray through, who reveals God to us, who gives himself to us in His Word and Body, who we meditate upon and who encounters us in God’s forgiveness. And yet, if look at the crucifix, the tortured, bloody, cut and wounded body, how can we say this is beautiful?
Our crucifix has Christ pictured one moment after he gave up his spirit, his final moment of death.
We may look at the cross, wonder, and ask the same question as St. Athanasius did 1700 years ago, “Why did you come down to us?”
And the only answer is the same answer as to why Christ is so beautiful…love! St. Peter tells us in first letter that Christ’s love is so great that “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds we have been healed.” (1 Pt 2.24)
His love is shown in every celebration on this Easter weekend! From his great gift of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, to the gift of sacrificial love on Good Friday, the significance of the Light of Christ as we enter the Easter Vigil, and the joy of the Resurrection on Easter morning, foreshadowing our own resurrection to eternal life with the Trinity in heaven!
The apostle John tells us “this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”
We look at Jesus gasping his last breath, looking upon us in love saying “greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends.” (John 15.13-14)
Truly, when we look at the crucifix today, let us say to ourselves “Christ is beautiful!
