Good Friday traditions?
Apart from perhaps going to a church service, are there things you do or don’t do on Good Friday?
My mother would not do washing on Good Friday. When we moved to a different part of the country I remember she was shocked that shops were generally open, which they hadn’t been where we lived previously, but latterly if she needed something she would buy it on GF. Personally I choose to avoid shopping on GF. I do generally eat fish on GF, but often do on Fridays anyway, though not for any special reason other than habit.
My mother would not do washing on Good Friday. When we moved to a different part of the country I remember she was shocked that shops were generally open, which they hadn’t been where we lived previously, but latterly if she needed something she would buy it on GF. Personally I choose to avoid shopping on GF. I do generally eat fish on GF, but often do on Fridays anyway, though not for any special reason other than habit.
Comments
Colouring Easter eggs in our family tradition: take the raw egg, spread out newspaper, very carefully arrange scraps of onion skin, crepe paper, non-colourfast fabric, bits of wool, etc around the egg, holding it all together and then making a parcel of it all wrapped in newspaper, and boiling all these parcels for twenty minutes in a giant pan. Take them out of the water, open the sodden parcels (oh the aroma!) and see the magically coloured eggs within. It's much harder to do nowadays, with fewer non-colourfast fabrics...I remember I never knew anyone else who did it that way, when I was growing up.
I wondered yesterday whether the hot cross buns would just fall by the wayside this year, but I think I’m likely to make them when we get back from Boston. I can enjoy them with my coffee and live with them being a bit belated.
In my adult life: the 10am Walk of Witness through the town followed by hot cross buns in the URC church hall, fish and chips from the chippy then watching The Miracle Maker (1999 animated film about the life of Jesus).
This year: I've given up going on the Walk of Witness since it stopped being ecumenical and the readings from Mark's Gospel were replaced by bits of the Epistles. Watched The Miracle Maker with my family in the morning while eating hot cross buns,went to the chippy for lunch then we variously went to the Hour at the Cross service: me and my younger son to the middle of the road Anglican service that I go to now, where I did a reading, my elder son and his girlfriend to the happy clappy Anglican church (that I used to go to) where they both did readings.
I had never thought of that before; Jesus's body being safe and waiting...
Me too. I stay at home and don't want to talk to anybody. I find the Stations of the Crosss, in a a sequences of poems by Malcolm Guite very moving/helpful. Sacred music too.
I was disappointed to find that the BBC are apparently not showing their customary Easter from King's which they used to have on Good Friday afternoon.
As for me, church in the morning and after fish for lunch, I watched the afternoon Wintershall Passion from Trafalgar Square on the computer in the afternoon.
At one time, we used to do a full three hours here, in half hour blocks, so that people could choose how much they could manage. That, though, takes a lot of organising, and times have changed.
Yep. I suspect it was more to do with a day off work than timing.
Yes. It's a valuable insight.
@Telford may or may not be interested to know that it's also very Orthodox.
In our Holy Saturday morning service things segue - as they say these days - from the sorrowful and mournful atmosphere of Good Friday to the joy of the Resurrection.
The priest scatters bay leaves everywhere and even throws them at people to mark that transition.
We also sing 'Let all mortal flesh keep silent' in a slow tempo at first but it quickens as the service progresses.
Telford is spot on.
I can imagine it might be like that in some Lutheran and Presbyterian settings too.
I have no objection to that hymn nor to worship songs and choruses per se, although they ain't my bag, but why no Easter hymns? It's not as if there are any shortage of them.
Perhaps that's an issue for another thread?