Friday Links

Good Friday

March 29, 2024

All of us at Dappled Things offer our prayers for you, our supporters and readers, that this Easter Season brings you much grace and many blessings. God Bless you on this Good Friday.

For this holiest of days, we have an abridged Friday Links. We’ll be back next week with more.

The Dream of Gerontius by Cardinal Newman is one of the most beautiful and sublime poems ever written. Cardinal Newman’s insights into the movements of the soul facing death remind us that death and judgement await us all, that we have a duty to pray for the dead and dying, and, most importantly, that Our Lord redeems our suffering, pain, and death through his death on the cross.

At no moment was Christ without the power to walk away from any of this, and yet, for love of us, he endured the most vile treatment, the greatest agony, the most humiliating death. As you ponder the Passion and Death of Our Lord today, remember that all of it—when he was mocked and cursed and spat upon, betrayed and beaten, when scourge and hammer struck, when blood dripped from the crown of thorns into his eyes, when his fear of forsakenness impelled him to cry out, when “gaving up the ghost,” he died—all of this he did because he loves us. He spent three days in Hell, “the abode of the dead,” to conquer death so that our own suffering and death are not without meaning, are not an end, but a beginning. Despite our sinfulness, our mockery and betrayal of him, he did this so that we can spend eternity with him. It’s mind boggling. And so we pray, Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa and Deo gratias, Deo gratias, Deo gratias.

The Dream of Gerontius is available online, including HERE from EWTN. And HERE is a glorious and moving Halle Orchestra performance of Sir Edward Elger’s composition of Gerontius from the BBC Proms with Mark Elder conducting.

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.