Good Friday

"Why do we call today Good Friday?" This is a question I often had as a child.
It is one I didn't really hear the answer to, just because I didn't listen that well!
I remember my parents letting me watch "the Jesus movie" when it came on tv around Easter or maybe it was Christmas? For that I am so grateful, for it introduced me to the God-Man, our Savior Jesus Christ.
Good Friday now takes on a new significance in my adult years.
Especially in the wake of suffering which has come.
But John Paul II gave us some hopeful words when he said that suffering is a channel through which the grace of God flows. With Jesus' suffering and death on the Cross, He has made suffering a redemptive thing, not something to be railed against, but rather, something to be embraced. It is a gift to be able to offer offer our sufferings in union with Jesus on His Cross, to save souls. The Franciscan who was asked by Pope Benedict to give the homily in Rome today said this: "Suffering has been made, almost, a sacrament". Whoa.
That was powerful for me because....well, let me just say there's been lots of opportunity lately.
Also, I love Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR. The meditation from today's reading from "Living Faith" happens to be one of his, from his book The King, Crucified and Risen. Here's a big portion of that quote:

"We must look at the incredible and mysterious event of the death of a God, the only God who ever died, and realize that it happened for us that we might live forever. We are forgiven-we need only accept and acknowledge the forgiveness and the need to repent, to change as much as we can.
We have two more things to do. As Jesus Christ made clear in his life and works: We also must forgive, and we must love and help others in return for what God has done for us."

How beautiful. And, for further meditation, there is of course today's readings:
http://www.usccb.org/nab/today.shtml
I am a Prodigal Daughter. Jesus is the King of Mercy. He has embraced me in His Sacred Heart.
For that, I will never cease being grateful. I only pray that I stay close to Him all the days of my life, until my dying breathe. For those moments I do fail (and there are more of those moments than I care to remember), I am so happy to run to the merciful arms of the Lord in His "Tribunal of Mercy", the Confessional.
This link seems a good one to explore the Divine Mercy devotion in detail:
www.divinemercy.org Also, see www.marian.org for the site of the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
The Divine Mercy Novena starts today!!
"O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a Fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You!" Amen.