Good Friday Prayer Suggestions
Prayer for Good Friday from the United Methodist Hymnal #284
Almighty God, graciously behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Almighty God, graciously behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Prayer of Invocation (Unison) For Good Friday
O Christ, who forsook no one, but was forsaken by the closest of friends;
and who committed no crime yet was sentenced to a criminal's death,
we enter your presence in awe, adoration and remembrance.
On this day, centuries ago, you could have saved your life,
but you refused to betray the purpose for which you had been born.
You had come into the world out of God's love;
And when that love required you to shoulder a cross, you summoned the strength to bear it.
Today, O Christ, as we read, listen, sing and pray about the cross and hear again your final words from the cross
- may our ears - hear, our hearts - feel, and our minds be open to receive new meaning
and greater understanding of your love for us and for all humankind. Amen.
O Christ, who forsook no one, but was forsaken by the closest of friends;
and who committed no crime yet was sentenced to a criminal's death,
we enter your presence in awe, adoration and remembrance.
On this day, centuries ago, you could have saved your life,
but you refused to betray the purpose for which you had been born.
You had come into the world out of God's love;
And when that love required you to shoulder a cross, you summoned the strength to bear it.
Today, O Christ, as we read, listen, sing and pray about the cross and hear again your final words from the cross
- may our ears - hear, our hearts - feel, and our minds be open to receive new meaning
and greater understanding of your love for us and for all humankind. Amen.
Prayers from "Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits" Edited by Michael Harter, SJ
The Eucharist and Our Daily Lives
Come, Lord, enter my heart,
you who are,
crucified, who have died, who love, who are faithful, truthful, patient, and humble, you who have taken upon yourself a slow and
toilsome life
in a single corner of the world,
denied by those who are your own,
too little loved by your friends,
betrayed by them, subjected to the law, made the plaything of politics right from the very first, a refugee child,
a carpenter's son, a creature who found only barrenness and futility as a result of his labors, a man who loved and who found no love in response,
you who were too exalted for those about you to understand, you who were left desolate, who were brought to the point of feeling yourself forsaken by God, you who sacrificed all, who commend yourself into the hands of your Father,
you who cry: “My God, my Father,
why have you forsaken me? "
I will receive you as you are,
make you the innermost law of my life,
take you as at once the burden and the strength of my life.
When I receive you I accept my everyday just as
it is.
I do not need to have any lofty feelings in my heart to recount to you.
I can lay my everyday before you just as it is, for I receive it from you yourself, the everyday and its inward light, the everyday and its meaning, the everyday and the power to endure it, the sheer familiarity of it, which becomes the dimmedness of your eternal
—KARL R.AHNER, SJ
Prayer for Compassion
Teach me how to be compassionate to the suffering, to the poor, the blind, the lame, and the lepers;
show me how you revealed your deepest emotions, as when you shed tears, or when you felt sorrow and anguish to the point of sweating blood and needed an angel to console you.
Above all, I want to learn how you supported the extreme pain of the cross, including the abandonment of your Father.
—PEDRO ARRUPE, SJ
Entrusting Myself to the Hands of Jesus
I've come to think that the only, the supreme, prayer we can offer up, during these hours
when the road before us is shrouded in darkness, is that of our Master on the cross: ‘In manus tuas commendo spiriturn meum.'
To the hands that broke and gave life to the bread, that blessed and caressed, that were pierced; . to the kindly and mighty hands that reach. down to the very marrow of the soul—that mould and create--
to the hands through which so great a love is transmitted--
it is to these that it is good to surrender our soul, above all when we suffer or are afraid.
And in so doing there is a great happiness and great merit.
—PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, SJ
The Eucharist and Our Daily Lives
Come, Lord, enter my heart,
you who are,
crucified, who have died, who love, who are faithful, truthful, patient, and humble, you who have taken upon yourself a slow and
toilsome life
in a single corner of the world,
denied by those who are your own,
too little loved by your friends,
betrayed by them, subjected to the law, made the plaything of politics right from the very first, a refugee child,
a carpenter's son, a creature who found only barrenness and futility as a result of his labors, a man who loved and who found no love in response,
you who were too exalted for those about you to understand, you who were left desolate, who were brought to the point of feeling yourself forsaken by God, you who sacrificed all, who commend yourself into the hands of your Father,
you who cry: “My God, my Father,
why have you forsaken me? "
I will receive you as you are,
make you the innermost law of my life,
take you as at once the burden and the strength of my life.
When I receive you I accept my everyday just as
it is.
I do not need to have any lofty feelings in my heart to recount to you.
I can lay my everyday before you just as it is, for I receive it from you yourself, the everyday and its inward light, the everyday and its meaning, the everyday and the power to endure it, the sheer familiarity of it, which becomes the dimmedness of your eternal
—KARL R.AHNER, SJ
Prayer for Compassion
Teach me how to be compassionate to the suffering, to the poor, the blind, the lame, and the lepers;
show me how you revealed your deepest emotions, as when you shed tears, or when you felt sorrow and anguish to the point of sweating blood and needed an angel to console you.
Above all, I want to learn how you supported the extreme pain of the cross, including the abandonment of your Father.
—PEDRO ARRUPE, SJ
Entrusting Myself to the Hands of Jesus
I've come to think that the only, the supreme, prayer we can offer up, during these hours
when the road before us is shrouded in darkness, is that of our Master on the cross: ‘In manus tuas commendo spiriturn meum.'
To the hands that broke and gave life to the bread, that blessed and caressed, that were pierced; . to the kindly and mighty hands that reach. down to the very marrow of the soul—that mould and create--
to the hands through which so great a love is transmitted--
it is to these that it is good to surrender our soul, above all when we suffer or are afraid.
And in so doing there is a great happiness and great merit.
—PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, SJ
