Good Friday of the Lord's Passion 2024

Published: March 29, 2024

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor preached the following homily during the Veneration of the Cross at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock on Friday, March 29, 2024.

Bishop Taylor

When Jesus’ disciples asked how to pray, the Lord’s Prayer was his answer. Recently, the phrase “hallowed be thy name” keeps surfacing as kind of pivot around which the rest of my prayer revolves — I have spoken about this on other occasions, but I think this bears repeating.

Years ago, I was told that it was okay, even healthy, to get angry with God sometimes. Angry about unanswered prayers. Angry about adversity. Angry about loss. More recently the Lord has revealed to me that getting angry with God is actually a very bad idea. I’m not talking about not getting upset — that’s normal and natural.

I’m talking about anger. Anger implies that God owes us something that he has not delivered. Anger exalts our will over God’s will and certainly does not “hallow” his name. What did Job say after losing practically everything? “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!”

On Good Friday we discover that the cross is salvific, including the crosses in our own lives — what cause is there for anger there? If Jesus, who is without sin, embraced the cross with sacrificial love, who are we to resent the adversities with which God sees fit to bless us — and indeed, save us?

How could resentment possibly hallow God’s name? We ask for our daily bread — everything we need, which is not everything we desire. We ask to be delivered from evil, yet only God knows what is truly best for us, and so we resent it when God doesn’t do things the way we would prefer.

Even illness and death become a blessing when embraced with an attitude that hallows — sanctifies — God’s name. He is the master; we are servants whose only role and source of greatest blessing is to do God’s will as best we know it.

That is why when people ask me about future plans, I often add the phrase, “God willing,” which is a small reminder that whatever God wills — even difficult things — comes first.

By embracing the cross with sacrificial love, Jesus models for us today what it really means to hallow God’s name.