Good Friday

On Good Friday, the entire Church looks upon the Cross at Calvary. Church members try to understand Jesus’ Passion: how He gave the opportunity for our redemption. In the Adoration of the Cross, or Good Friday, the members of the church chant the ‘Reproaches’, read the Passion, and receive the pre-consecrated Host. We bond ourselves to our Savior, and we ponder our own death to sin in the Death of our Lord.
The Church is stripped of its adornments, the alter is exposed, and the door to the tabernacle is left open. All of these things symbolize mourning. In earlier times, this action was called a day of mourning, not to be a day of celebratory happiness. This day was called the ‘Pasch of the Crucifixion’.
No Mass is celebrated today. The service for Good Friday is called the Mass of the Presanctified because Communion is already consecrated on Holy Thursday and is given to the parish people today.
It is custom for all music to be silent from Holy Thursday until the Alleluia at the Easter Vigil. All musical instruments are silenced as well, and the only music heard is the solitary chant.
Omitting the prayer of consecration heightens our sense of loss because Mass throughout the year reminds us of the Lord’s triumph over death, the source of our joy and blessing. Today reminds us of Christ’s humiliation and suffering during his Passion.

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday is a multifaceted and deeply profound religious observance. It celebrates Christ becoming the Eucharist and the institution of the sacerdotal priesthood. For in this, the celebration of Passover (the last supper), He is the self-offered Passover victim. Every ordained priest represents this same sacrifice, by Christ’s influence and authority. The Last Supper was also Christ’s farewell to His assembled disciples, even though some of them would betray or deny Him before the night was over.
On Holy Thursday there is a special Mass because it is a solemn observance of Christ’s institution of the priesthood. At this ‘Chrism Mass’ the bishop blesses the Oil of Chrism used for Baptism and Confirmation. The bishop may wash the feet of twelve priests, to symbolize Christ’s washing the feet of his Apostles, the first priests.
The Holy Thursday liturgy is observed at sundown because that is the time when Passover began. The Liturgy shows both the worth God attributes to the humility of service, and the need for cleansing with water (a symbol of baptism). This cleansing is also referred to as Mandatum washing; it represents Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. The priests also strip and wash the altar. This day of cleansing during Holy Week is also referred to as Maundy Thursday.
The Church also witnesses to its high regard for Christ’s Body present in the consecrated Host in the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, carried in solemn procession to the flower covered Altar of Repose, where it will remain ‘entombed’ until the communion service on Good Friday. No mass is celebrated again in the Church until the Easter Vigil proclaims the Resurrection.
Conclusively, The Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is completed by the people during the night, just as the disciples stayed with the Lord during His agony on the Mount of Olives before the betrayal by Judas.

Trinity – Review

IN BRIEF
as listed in the Catechism #:
261 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
262 The Incarnation of God's Son reveals that God is the eternal Father and that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, which means that, in the Father and with the Father the Son is one and the same God.
263 The mission of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father in the name of the Son ( Jn 14:26) and by the Son "from the Father" ( Jn 15:26), reveals that, with them, the Spirit is one and the same God. "With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified" (Nicene Creed).
264 "The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the first principle and, by the eternal gift of this to the Son, from the communion of both the Father and the Son" (St. Augustine, De Trin. 15, 26, 47: PL 42, 1095).
265 By the grace of Baptism "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", we are called to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity, here on earth in the obscurity of faith, and after death in eternal light (cf. Paul VI, CPG # 9).
266 "Now this is the Catholic faith: We worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, without either confusing the persons or dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one, the Son's is another, the Holy Spirit's another; but the Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal" (Athanasian Creed: DS 75; ND 16).
267 Inseparable in what they are, the divine persons are also inseparable in what they do. But within the single divine operation each shows forth what is proper to him in the Trinity, especially in the divine missions of the Son's Incarnation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Trinitarian Mission

Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him. (Jn 6:44; Rom 8:14)
But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the most Holy Trinity: “If a man loves me,” says the Lord, “he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.” (Jn 14:23)
Prayer of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity:
O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.

Dogma of the Holy Trinity

Best said as the following: The Trinity is one.
We, as Catholics, do not believe in three separate gods (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). We believe in one God who is three persons: “consubstantial Trinity”. Consubstantial: having same substance.
Each divine person is distinct from the other in their relations of origin: God, Son of God, and Spirit of God. Each divine person is also relative to one another. The divine unity is not divided because of the three persons, but a distinct communion of three persons who individually relate to each other to make one God. “Because of that Unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son.” (Council of Florence 1442)