Good Friday A 2026

There is a moment in the garden of Gethsemane that should stop us in our tracks. Jesus kneels alone in the dark. His friends are asleep nearby. He knows what is coming. And yet he does not stride through those hours untouched by fear. He sweats – trembles and asks for the cup to pass him by.

"Not what I want, but what you want." Jesus says

He held his deepest fear in one hand, his deepest love in the other — and chose love. Not because the fear was small but because love was greater.

Then they came for him.

What followed was the worst of what human beings can do when power feels threatened. They struck him, spat on him, mocked him. And through it all he remained entirely himself. There are people who shrink in the presence of power. Jesus expanded. The worse they treated him, the more clearly you could see who he was.

Then came the cross.

Raw, ugly, final. A public shaming designed to erase him from history. People walked past and sneered. The sky darkened. A small group of those who loved him stood at the foot of the cross and did not look away — because real love can stand in someone's worst hour without flinching.

When he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — that was not performance. That was a man entering full darkness, all the way, without shortcuts. He paid full price for every inch of the journey. And through all of it, Jesus made no accusation, expressed no disappointment, made no cold withdrawal.

It was love. Unearned, unstoppable, unconditional love. The kind that shows up at the foot of the cross and says:

I see you. I see all of you. And I love you so much, I am not going anywhere!

By Fr. Thomas O'Brien a.a.