A time of Lexio devena for the discerning heart.

Good Friday.

As you begin, take a deep breath and exhale slowly.

For the next few moments, surrender all the cares and concerns of this day to the Lord.

Say slowly from your heart, Jesus, I trust in you.

You take over. Become aware that he is with you, looking upon you with love,

wanting to be heard deep within your heart.

A reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 52, verse 13 through Chapter 53, verse 12.

See, my servant will prosper. He shall be lifted up, exalted, rise to great heights.

As the crowds were appalled on seeing him, so disfigured did he look, that he seemed no longer human.

So will the crowds be astonished at him, and King stand speechless before him,

for they shall see something never told, and witness something never heard before.

Who could believe what we have heard, and to whom has the power of

the Lord been revealed? Like a sapling he grew up in front of us, like a root, an arid ground.

Without beauty, without majesty we saw him, no looks to attract our eyes. A thing despised and rejected by men, a man of

sorrows familiar with suffering, a man to make people screen their faces. He was despised,

and we took no account of him. And yet ours were the sufferings he bore, our sorrows he carried.

But we, we thought of him as someone punished, struck by God and brought low.

Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins.

On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed.

We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way, and the Lord burdened him with the sins of all of us.

Harsely dealt with, he bore it humbly, he never opened his mouth, like a lamb that has led to the

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