It is Good Friday - a day of humility and silence

published on 5/3/24 5:05 AM

Photo: BGNES

The day of Christ's Crucifixion is the most sorrowful for the Christian community, the only one on which the Divine liturgy is not celebrated. There is also no Holy Communion, because the Lord Himself offered Himself as a sacrifice through the crucifixion of His Son.

Silence fills the hearts of the faithful who look inward to examine their consciences. Head bowed, they turn to God in gratitude and humility at the sacrifice of Christ, the sacrificial Lamb who abrogated the sacrifice of the Old Covenant and established the Eucharist as the source of eternal life and residence in God.

In Bulgaria, Good Friday is an official non-working day on which Orthodox churches are filled with the laity. Early in the morning, before the Divine Liturgy called the Royal Hours, Christ's flower-decorated "tomb" is placed in the middle of the church, in front of the Crucifix placed there on Holy Thursday.

At the end of the service, the priests bring out of the altar the shroud with the embroidered image of the Body of Jesus Christ taken down from the Cross.

After the clergy have genuflected, it is the turn of the laity to pass under the shroud as a sign of humility and penance.

"This passing under the table symbolizes the descent, together with God, into the grave", explains the theologian Alexandra Karamihaleva in an interview for Radio Bulgaria. "It is our dying for our previous life in vanity, in dealing with really empty and vain things, a life dictated by our selfishness, pride, anger, greed, envy, etc. By our kneeling before the Cross of Christ, by our crawling under the table, we are making this very entry into the grave, we are dying to our present self. On the other side, we come out reborn, with a vow to a new life in Christ, a life of love for others. In the new life, our priority is the Lord Jesus Christ, with His commandments."

And God's most important commandments are to love God and one's neighbour. This means that everything we do every day is dictated by not hurting anyone. "Every person God sends on our life's journey should leave after meeting us calmer, more joyful and smiling, more confident that they will make it, with greater hope and greater faith that there is a God, that God is near, that he is only one Oh Lord exclamation distance away from us and we have nothing to fear," emphasizes Alexandra Karamihaleva.

Crucified and nailed between two thieves, the Saviour prays to His Father to forgive His tormentors and sets a supreme example of love for one's neighbour. In that moment, one of the thieves recognizes the Son of God as the Saviour and asks for forgiveness.

"This is a very strong message for all of us that there is hope, while we are alive it is not too late to repent," Alexandra Karamihaleva notes. "Let us recognize Christ as God and as our Saviour. Let us glorify Him as such and ask for forgiveness for our sins. In fact, the robber commits many serious transgressions, murders, robberies, but with this attitude of sorrow and humility, he realizes that he deserves his suffering and punishment. He also sees that Jesus suffers in spite of having no guilt, in spite of being righteous, and this insight of his is actually salvific for him. It is also very encouraging for all of us, but it should also make us extremely cautious when we say of someone that he or she is a sinner. We don't know what they are like standing before God, how they repent and pray that night, and whether God has forgiven them. That remains hidden to us."

So we must be extremely careful, even in our thoughts, to seek not to condemn others, even when we see their transgressions with our eyes. "Our attention must be focused on every movement of our soul - whether we are responding to other people with love," says Alexandra Karamihaleva.

"In fact, this is our measure - the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our only model. At every moment of our lives we should ask ourselves how Christ would act in our place. And He would act with unconditional love for every person, both the sinner and the righteous - with forgiveness, with mercy and generosity. This is what we should be like - striving to become better, more Christ-like, more God-like every day.", is the message of theologian Alexandra Karamihaleva on Good Friday.

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