“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16).

During Holy Week, you and I hear two different versions of the Passion of Christ. On Palm Sunday, the Passion is read from one of the Synoptic Gospels—either Matthew, Mark or Luke. In these versions, Christ’s death on the cross is always seen as something shameful and all of the apostles run away. It is this version that is the source of the tradition in the Latin Church of covering the Cross on Good Friday. On Good Friday, we always read the Passion from the Gospel of John and the emphasis in this Gospel is very different from the Synoptic Gospels. In John’s Gospel, the Cross is presented as the throne on which Jesus saved the world. Throughout the Passion narrative in John, Jesus is in charge and is freely giving himself to save humanity. The big difference from these Gospels is that John stayed at the Cross to see Jesus save humanity through His gift of self. It was because John saw Christ save humanity on the Cross that he writes: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of God be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.”  In the Eastern Churches, because they follow more closely the tradition expressed in the Gospel of John, on Good Friday they do not cover the cross, but adore it with flowers. Continue reading →