Good Friday Veneration of the Cross: Crucifix or bare cross?

[DaveBj]

At yesterday’s liturgy in St. Peters, it was a cross with a corpus attached. Some years ago I attended a liturgy at the OLAM Shrine in which a bare cross was used. Our local parish uses a bare cross with an inset in which is place a reliquary containing a fragment of the (supposed) True Cross.

The conclusion that I draw is that it all depends on the desires of the local person in charge.

D

 

[FrDavid96]

When I was growing up, my parish church always used a great big crucifix with a corpus on it for Good Friday Veneration of the Cross.
People would venerate by genuflecitng or bowing and kissing the feet of Jesus.

I was a bit taken aback today to attend a local Good Friday service and have them presenting a totally plain wooden cross painted red for us to venerate. No Jesus on it. I felt like a Protestant venerating a bare cross, and I felt kind of weird kissing a bare piece of wood where Jesus’ feet would normally be.

I see from past threads on CAF that some churches use a cross with Jesus and some use an empty cross.
Why would Catholic churches be using an empty cross? Is there some symbolism I am missing here?
Next year I would want to seek out a church that had a cross with Jesus on it, to be honest.

The cross on Good Friday is to be a crucifix; i.e. a cross with the image of Christ crucified.

In Catholic liturgy, the word always refers to a crucifix, unless it’s obvious for some reason that it refers to a plain cross. That said though, there’s (almost) no occasion in Catholic liturgy when a plain cross is ever used. The wooden crosses representing the 14 Stations are the only time I can recall when crosses, not crucifixes, might be used. Other than that, we know crosses appear everywhere in churches; such as embroidered on vestments, carved into pews, windows, etc. but those are just a matter of style, architecture, decoration, and not liturgical as such.

A few decades ago, it became somewhat “fashionable” to replace the crucifix with a plain cross. Part of that was that there were a lot of written suggestions out there to do so. However, none of those writings had any actual authority, but instead were just personal opinions.

While we have to exercise a certain caution when looking at photographs of papal liturgies, lest we mistakenly think that every minute detail was personally approved by the Holy Father, or constitutes some kind of universal precedent, it’s easy for anyone to search for photos of the Vatican celebrations to see that a crucifix is being used. Obviously, that crucifix is a major part of the Good Friday liturgy and the liturgists at the Vatican would hardly get it wrong for something so significant.

 

[FrDavid96]

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Pope Francis in 2015

 

[FrDavid96]

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Good Friday 2018

 

[FrDavid96]

That’s a good point about the True Cross actually having the Blood of Christ on it. I hadn’t thought of that, thanks.

As for “adore”, I hadn’t thought that verb could be applied to anything other than God. I was wondering about it since I noticed the language had changed from “worship”. But you are saying we can “adore” objects? Or am I still confused? Thanks for sharing your knowledge on this.

It was a mis-translation into English.

We don’t worship the crosses in our churches, instead we adore them. The old Sacramentary had the response “come let us worship.” That was corrected to “come let us adore.”

My point was that because the old word was “worship” it’s very easy for someone to miss the change and to chant the old response out of habit. Therefore, when someone notices that someone else is chanting a line other-than what’s in the current books, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is intentionally trying to alter the text. It’s easy to miss a small change like that. That’s really the only point I was trying to make.

 

[FrDavid96]

…

The conclusion that I draw is that it all depends on the desires of the local person in charge.

D

No, it’s not a matter of options. It is supposed to be a crucifix.

The rubric is often (and easily) misunderstood, but it’s not a matter of choice.

 

[DaveBj]

No, it’s not a matter of options. It is supposed to be a crucifix.

The rubric is often (and easily) misunderstood, but it’s not a matter of choice.

Your point is taken, but as frequently happens in the Catholic Church, there are differences between the rubrics and what actually happens.

D

 

[Phemie]

For decades we had a bare cross. They varied from the 8’ tall tree trunk one that was used when I first got here, to the two different plank ones we’ve had in recent years.

For two or three years, a very devout couple brought the former crucifix that used to adorn our sanctuary, which they were given when the pastor of the time hung a much larger cross with a Risen Christ on it, and that is the cross that was venerated.

This year our priest opted to use our processional crucifix.

 

[Phemie]

The rubric is often (and easily) misunderstood, but it’s not a matter of choice.

FrDavid96, speaking of rubrics, how did the practice of keeping the lights off until the Gloria at the Vigil develop? The Sacramentary definitely said, “The lights in the church are turned on” before the Exsultet!. The wording is slightly different in 3rd edition of the Roman Missal. For years we’ve sat in the dark because it’s more dramatic, something that totally leaves out those who need to follow the readings in their missals/missalettes for whatever reason (one candle doesn’t really shed enough light for old eyes to read that small print).

 

[casslean]

Ours were turned on before the Exsultet.

We have a HUGE turnout for the Good Friday service (which is odd - it is a predominantly Protestant area, but we have 500-600 for Good Friday each year, in an area that gets maybe 500 for ALL the weekend Masses combined) so we have multiple crosses for veneration. I think one was a bare cross and the others were crucifixes.

 

[FrDavid96]

FrDavid96, speaking of rubrics, how did the practice of keeping the lights off until the Gloria at the Vigil develop? The Sacramentary definitely said, “The lights in the church are turned on” before the Exsultet!. The wording is slightly different in 3rd edition of the Roman Missal. For years we’ve sat in the dark because it’s more dramatic, something that totally leaves out those who need to follow the readings in their missals/missalettes for whatever reason (one candle doesn’t really shed enough light for old eyes to read that small print).

It’s actually rather simple (at least in one way).

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we did not even have electric lights until relatively recently in human history.

Even though electric lights were invented in 1879, that does not mean they appeared in every church building in the world immediately.

My point here is that any rubric dealing with electric lights is necessarily going to be a modern-day one. I know that sounds obvious, but frankly some people forget that. Until recently, the only lights at the Easter Vigil were candles (admittedly, maybe some scattered oil or gas lamps, maybe in larger or wealthier churches, but not enough to be significant).

It’s difficult to change rubrics for the most important Masses of the year. History proves that. We find the oldest customs retained in the most important Masses such as those of Easter, Holy Week, and Christmas. In part, this is done intentionally. In part, it happens accidentally. People either actively want to retain doing what they have become accustomed to doing, or they simply forget (or don’t notice) changes.

For example, just look at the CAF discussions about Good Friday. The response at the unveiling of the cross is supposed to be “Come let us adore” (since 2011). Yet, some places are still using “Come let us worship.”

I checked the old Sacramentary. The rubric to turn-on the lights is very difficult to find—even though I went looking for it. It’s s simple one line that appears after “Christ our Light” It’s not even printed in red ink and it’s at the very bottom of a page. I’m reading the Catholic Book Publishing Sacramentary which was (by far) the most widely used for that time-period.

 

[Phemie]

The thing is, I’ve been going to the Vigil in different parishes all over Canada for decades and did not experience this sitting in the dark until about 15 years ago.

 

[phil19034]

The thing is, I’ve been going to the Vigil in different parishes all over Canada for decades and did not experience this sitting in the dark until about 15 years ago.

Well, it also important to remember that the Easter Vigil was during the day until Pope Pius XII moved it to afterdark in the 1950s

I believe our Cathedral does it the right way.

1. The lights are on for us to sit
2. Then, all lights go out just before lighting the fire (our Cathedral lights the fire inside, at the back of the Church, middle of the nave.
3. Once the fire is lit, the light in the choir loft is lit.
4. Next, once the clergy and attending seminarians are in the sanctuary, a few additional lights in the nave are lit, but not all of them and not the sanctuary lights. Just enough lite to see the front of the sanctuary, where the Archbishop is sitting, and enough light in the nave so people can read their missal.
5. at the Gloria all the lights come on and ALL candles are lit.

So while we are not in total darkness, the symbolism of the light increasing is still preserved.

God Bless

 

[FrDavid96]

The thing is, I’ve been going to the Vigil in different parishes all over Canada for decades and did not experience this sitting in the dark until about 15 years ago.

I do a sort of compromise at my parish.

During the Lumen Christi, we turn on sufficient lights to light-up the church. We intentionally leave some of them off, such as the ceiling lights which point downward to light the back wall of the sacristy, and the ceiling light that adds extra brightness to the altar (mostly there for the priest to read the missal with nice bright lighting, but not strictly necessary). Then, during the Gloria, we turn everything on.

Where I see a definite dis-connect is in having the church well-lit during the Exsultet. There is a real sign-value to the light of the Pascal Candle (yes, that’s a “no kidding, tell me something I don’t know” comment). If the light of the Pascal Candle is lost amid a well-lit church building, then what’s the point?

 

[phil19034]

I have NEVER been to a Good Friday service without a crucifix.

Good Friday is all about Christ sacrificing himself on the Cross. When our Blessed Mother worshiped her son on the Cross after He died, she was worshiping Him, via is Body & Blood. She wasn’t adoring the Cross after He carried it.

Futhermore, Good Friday takes place at 3PM because that’s when Christ died. He is already crucified at the start of Good Friday service.

If a parish wants to remember him carrying His cross, then they should (like my Cathedral) have 3 hours of prayer before 3pm.

For example: I arrived at our Cathedral at 11:30 this Good Friday.

At Noon we prayed the Office of Readings
At 1PM we prayed the Stations of the Cross
At 2PM we prayed and meditated on the Last Sayings of Jesus

All while Confessions were being heard.

All of which were a great preparation for 3PM

God Bless