Lend with the Saints from the Mary Good Friday. Today is the day Jesus carries

his cross through the streets of Jerusalem and up the hill of Calvary.

This is the walk we've been preparing for all throughout Lent.

There are no masses offered today, not at your church or any church anywhere in the world.

Today, you can go to church for the veneration of the cross, and hear readings

and receive the Eucharist, but there is no Mass offered until tomorrow night at the Easter

vigil Mass on Holy Saturday. Today is a day to stay close to Jesus, meditating on his cross.

Let's listen to the words of the gospel for today,

Good Friday. But first, let's start with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the gospel according to Mark.

The soldiers clothed Jesus in purple, and, weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him.

They began to salute him with hail, king of the Jews,

and kept striking his head with a reed and spitting upon him. They knelt before him in homage,

and when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own clothes,

and led him out to crucify him.

They pressed into service a passerby, Simon, a Sirenian, who was coming in from the country,

the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.

They brought him to the place of Golgatha, which is translated,

Place of the Skull. They gave him wine, drugged with myrr, but he did not take it. Then they crucified him, and divided his garments by casting lots for them to see what each should take.

It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him.

The inscription of the charge against him read,

The King of the Jews.

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