Homily given by Bishop Anthony Randazzo
Bishop of Broken Bay
Good Friday: The Celebration of the Lord's Passion 2025
18 April 2025
My dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
Today we stand at the foot of the Cross.
We come in silence, in sorrow, and in awe, as the Church keeps her most solemn vigil. We have just listened again to the Passion of Our Lord, and we cannot help but be struck by the weight of it all, the cruelty, the shame, the injustice, the unbearable suffering.
As Isaiah foretold: “He was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On him lies a punishment that brings us peace, and through his wounds we are healed.”
And again, the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us: “For it is not as if we had a high priest who was incapable of feeling our weaknesses with us.”
The suffering of Jesus is not a distant drama from long ago. It is personal, it is deeply human, it is real, it is truly divine. For many, the Passion stirs a desire to understand, what did Jesus really feel? How much did he suffer? Others look further, seeing even in his broken body the dawning light of Easter morning. But both ways of seeing are true.
The Passion was inconceivably horrible. And it was endured entirely for you. For me. For each one of us.
That is a statement we can only truly make our own in faith. And when we do, when we look upon Christ crucified with the eyes of faith, we begin to discover something astonishing. The Cross becomes not only the measure of Christ’s suffering, but the wellspring of our hope.
Hope for forgiveness.
Hope for mercy.
Hope for love that does not fail.
Hope for healing.
Hope for eternal life.
This is the mystery of Good Friday: that from death springs life, from anguish comes peace, from the Cross shines hope.
In this Holy Year, my dear people, I urge you: look upon Christ Crucified. See in him our only hope. Not a passive hope, not wishful thinking, but a hope that redeems, that lifts us up, that calls us to live anew.
And as we gaze upon Jesus, we must not overlook the one who stood beneath the Cross, Mary, his mother. Silent, steadfast, sorrowful, and full of faith.
In her, we see not only a mother’s grief but a disciple’s strength. She points us to her Son and whispers to every suffering heart: “Do whatever he tells you.” For in Jesus Christ, hope never disappoints.
So let us adore the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.
Let us entrust our hearts once more to the loving mercy of God.
And let us walk with Mary to the foot of the Cross, to find there, unexpected, radiant, the triumph of love. Amen.