Good Friday 2026
April 3, 2026
I. “Were You There?”
An African American spiritual asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” What if we had been there – at Golgotha? What would we have seen? Surely, Jesus crucified summing up in his body our tormented existence. Surely, Mary his Mother, sharing in his Sacrifice like no other. Surely, John the Beloved disciple, remaining with Jesus while others fled. Who else? Had we been there, we would have seen throngs of people coming and going, some gawking, others sneering, many indifferent. And still others: the downtrodden, the confused, the sorrowing. These too, “were there” when they crucified the Lord.
But this soulful hymn does not ask if they were there. It asks, “Were you there?” – you and I? It is not wrong to say we were represented at Calvary by the faithful few who stood beneath the Cross, and by the onlookers and passers-by. We can also say that we were included in the Sacrifice of Christ. After all, it was our sins that he bore, our chastisement he endured. But does even that fully satisfy the question, “Were you there?”
Good Friday invites you and be truly “to be there”, not merely in our imagination but “in spirit and in truth”. Our liturgy invites truly to encounter Christ crucified,
for when the Church gathers in prayer, Christ is in our midst. As the Passion is read, prayers are uttered, and the Cross is unveiled, Christ is inviting us to see, to understand, to take to heart what he has done to rescue us from sin and death and to open for us the gates of heaven. As the Easter Sequence will proclaim,
Christ fought for us “the battle stupendous” – grappling with the forces of sin and evil that bedevil us, grappling with death itself, the bitter fruit of sin. His death was not an isolated act of solitary heroism. It is a victory for all time and it lives on in the Church.
II. Christ Crucified Is with Us
Let us make no mistake. Even if our minds and hearts are elsewhere, Christ crucified is here, with us. He called out to us as the account of his Passion and Death was proclaimed. Simon of Cyrene beckons us, as do the faithful women of Jerusalem. Mary and the Beloved Disciple summon us to the foot of the Cross. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus await us in the Garden. Let us locate ourselves on the map of Christ’s Passion that John, the Beloved Disciple and Evangelist, has drawn.
So too, Christ is with us when we offer our solemn petitions. The Christ who loved us and gave himself for us remains with us in our need, in the needs of the Church and in the needs of the world – a world torn by war, suffering, and injustice. Pascal said ‘that Christ will be in agony until the world ends.’ Do we not see his agony unfold every day across the world and here at home? In the Middle East. In Ukraine. In West Baltimore. And elsewhere.
And while Holy Mass is not offered today by a grief-stricken Church, nonetheless we soon will receive the Body and Blood of Christ, the very One born of the Virgin, who was crucified, died, and was buried, and who rose from the dead – truly, our Redeemer is with us.
III. Are We There, with the Crucified?
Therefore, we no longer ask, “Were you there?” Now we ask, “Are we there?” or better, “Are we here?” – not merely physically but in body, mind, and spirit. Let us be fully present to the Crucified Lord, in every part of our humanity, as we bend low to adore the Cross by which we were redeemed.
As Bishop Eric Varden reminds us, “When we bend low to kiss the cross, let us remember what we undertake. We pledge to live and die with Christ, to forgive and be reconciled. We leave bitterness behind. We resolve to die to sin. If we’re sincere, the cross will vanquish now as it did then” (Eric Varden, Entering the Two-Fold Mystery, p. 187).
With all that is within us, come let us worship: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, for by your Cross you have redeemed the world.