I have a predisposition to dwell on Good Friday even when its already Easter Sunday.

I am not a great devotee of the standard rituals of the Catholic Easter mass. We all know the story and how it ends, so its like watching a familiar late night movie, you can’t wait for the good parts: the dimmed lights are brightened and the choir sings the Halleluiah chorus, we rejoice, Lent is over and we go forth, to hunt for Easter eggs and return to our carnivorous ways.

But my mind and heart is still in Good Friday mode, not least because work starts tomorrow. So I find kinship and comfort in the perspective adopted by Sheila Cassidy in her classic book on contemporary Lenten reflections, Good Friday People. The world is an evil place and we will not be spared from suffering. The Easter bunny will soon enough end up as rabbit stew. That, in Cassidy’s words:

As thinking, rational human beings we must always struggle to make sense of the dual realities of our life as Christians: the existence of appalling wickedness and suffering, and our belief in a loving God.

Columnist Juan Mercado defines Good Friday People in the Philippine context.