Catholic Activity: Good Friday Activities

Some suggestions of living Good Friday in the home.

DIRECTIONS

Good Friday this year will be far richer for many than ever before, since the Good Friday rites have been changed to the afternoon, and, for the first time in our lives, all of us — celebrant, priests, and layfolk — may receive Holy Communion on this most sacred day.

For the hours spent at home by those who cannot get to the rites of Good Friday, it is good to plan special activities in order to help all keep a spirit of recollection. With many little children silence is almost impossible, but as they grow older they begin to co-operate. Friends of ours have had their children make the garden of Joseph of Arimathea outdoors, separately, on Good Friday. They used whatever they could find at hand — stones, mosses, sticks, acorns. A drawing project will keep Peter occupied. Having said the Stations of the Cross during Lent, he applies himself seriously to illustrating them. Rereading the passages about the Passion will keep another child busy, read out of Scripture or from a favorite life of Christ.

For a boy who is fidgety and must be active, a solitary chore which is a penance is better: perhaps cleaning the goat stalls or spreading hay and manure from the goose's pen on the garden. I know many mothers who, because they must be at home with their babies during this time, save a task that especially tries them. Each has his or her way of best spending the hours of Good Friday, but it will work out most successfully if the program for the day is well planned.

Perhaps one of the tasks for several of the children can be copying Psalm 21 to be used at night prayers this evening. Our Lord quoted the first line of it from the cross. It prophesied Christ's Passion and Death and our salvation. "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me. . . ."

This was the great prayer of Our Lord on the cross. The family may divide itself and read the lines alternately.

Activity Source: Year and Our Children, The by Mary Reed Newland, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, 1956