Work on Good Friday?

[wcknight]

I was surprised a few year back when I went to Church on Good Friday expecting a noon time mass but there was absolutely nothing scheduled, and a bunch of other folks showed up also expecting some or event.

Now I think our parish has a stations of the cross scheduled for either noon or 3 PM. I think we also have a mass scheduled for 8 PM.

I think there should be something like a devotion or adoration time for when Our Lord suffered and died on the cross. Having a stations said at every parish, is fairly appropriate, as far as mandatory. Every Catholic should feel somewhat obligated to at least stop and pray and think about what Jesus went through.

As far as getting off work, I love holidays, but the US doesn’t really cater to any faith.

 

[KitSileya]

I thought the 3 p.m. service was mandatory in every parish? (Or at least as close to 3pm as possible.) And no mass - only adoration of the cross, listening to the Passion story in the Gospel of St. John, lots and lots of praying, and partaking of pre-consecrated hosts.

 

[DaveBj]

I said I had to work, but here’s what I’ve done to keep myself focused for the eight long hours in the guardshack. From my PC Study Bible program, I’ve copied out the text of the Passion narratives from all four Gospels into one WordPerfect file. Then I stripped out all the extraneous material (outline headers, verse numbers, etc.) until all that was left was the text and the chapter numbers. Then I "published’ it into a .pdf file.

Tomorrow I’m going to bring that file up on Adobe Reader. Reader has a “read out loud” function with a computer-generated voice that sounds a lot like the 'puter voice used by Stephen Hawking. So all day tomorrow, Stephen Hawking is going to be reading to me about how Jesus was betrayed, was crucified, died, and was raised from the dead.

DaveBj