Earlier today President Trump participated in an Easter message with Bishop Harry Jackson from the Oval Office. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. On this Good Friday, Christians from all around the world remember the suffering and death upon the cross of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. At Easter Sunday, we will celebrate his glorious resurrection.

At this holy time, our nation is engaged in a battle like never before — the invisible enemy. Our brave doctors, nurses, and responders — first responders, responders of all — are fighting to save lives. Our workers are racing to deliver critical medical supplies. Our best scientists are working around the clock to develop lifesaving therapeutics, and I think they’re doing really well in doing so. Our people are making tremendous sacrifices to end this pandemic.

Though we will not be able to gather together with one another as we normally would on Easter, we can use this sacred time to focus on prayer, reflection, and growing in our personal relationship with God. So important.

I ask all Americans to pray that God will heal our nation; to bring comfort to those who are grieving; to give strength to the doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers; to restore health to the sick; and to renew the hope in every person who is suffering. Our nation will come through like never before.

I thank the many families who have prayed for me and for my family. And your prayers are felt, and I am forever grateful.

I’d like to thank our great Vice President and his wonderful wife, who we all know very well, Karen, for the incredible job they do and for their service not only to the country but for their service to God.

Almost 3,000 years ago, the Prophet Isaiah wrote these words: “Darkness covers the Earth…but the Lord rises upon you, and His glory appears over you…For the Lord will be your everlasting light.”

As our nation battles the invisible enemy, we reaffirm that Americans believe in the power of prayer. We give thanks for the majesty of creation and for the gift of eternal life. And we place our trust in the hands of Almighty God.

I’d like to just wish everybody a very Happy Easter. We’re going to be celebrating that very, very special day, and it’s going to be, hopefully, a very good weekend and a very productive weekend.

And I want to thank everybody in our country and beyond for all they’ve had to put up with. One hundred and eighty-four countries, as of this morning, are fighting this enemy and we pray for them all.

With that, I’d like to introduce Bishop Harry Jackson from Maryland, a highly respected gentleman who is a member of our faith and a person that we have tremendous respect for.

Bishop, please. Thank you.

BISHOP JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, let me say thank you for the job you’re doing — you and the Vice President — to protect our nation. And you’ve included the churches in the relief efforts. Many churches would’ve had to close down —

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

BISHOP JACKSON: — had it not been for your insightful leadership. So thank you both very much.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Bishop.

BISHOP JACKSON: Good Friday, as we prepare to pray, is one of the darkest days in the Christian faith in that Christ stood in substitution for our sin. But the resurrection is our victory. But it parallels with the Passover.

I’m going to read two verses and pray out of them about what we want to have happen. We want this plague to pass over. We want everyone in America to be safe.

Psalm 105 says: He brought them out without — with gold — silver and gold, and there was none feeble among His tribes.

Verse 39 goes on to say: He spread a cloud for covering, and fire to give light in the night.

Let us pray:

Lord, let the death angel pass over. Let there be a mitigation of this plague, this disease. Let medical science come forth.

Lord, let us come out with a thriving economy. That silver and gold spoken of in that passage, let it be our portion.

And then, God, as we face other challenges in the future, Lord covers with a cloud by day and a fire by night.

But in this great land that was set up to glorify your name, we want to break, we come against the spirit of division.

Lord, let e pluribus unum be a reality in us. Let there be a uniting of America. Heal the divide between race, class, and gender.

Once again, give this great man, our President, and give the Vice President wisdom beyond their natural limitations. Give them insights so they can cover us, lead us, and bless us.
We bless them and America in Jesus’s name.

Be encouraged. Hope is on the way. Amen.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Bishop. That’s beautiful.

BISHOP JACKSON: Thank you, my friend.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. That was a great honor, and thank you.

And thank you all. And have a great Good Friday, and we’re going to see you in a little while. And also, if I don’t see you, have a great Easter. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Q Mr. President, what’s your message to churches? Should pastors have Easter services?

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.

Q Can we ask you that at the briefing perhaps?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q Okay. Thank you. Happy Easter.

THE PRESIDENT: You too. Happy Easter, everybody.

END 12:15 P.M. EDT

Today we observe Good Friday, the day of the death of Jesus. Many Christian Churches have different ways of observation, to prepare us for the coming resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday. Today, the sacrifices we have made during Lent culminate in our internalization of the great offering of Christ’s life. If we have been diligent in our Lenten preparations, Good Friday hits us with a power and force that brings us, literally and figuratively, to our knees with the grasp of what Jesus poured out for us. It becomes personal, a tiny sliver of the cross is buried in our heart. And so each year, we find that we give ourselves over to Christ just a little more through this time of penance and reflection. 

This year, in particular,  I suspect that many of us will experience Good Friday as we never have before, with a comprehension of our own mortality and perhaps even an understanding that there are so many things in this world we do not, we cannot, control. We can control our choice in relationship to those things, and to the most important choice of all, the life and death of Jesus Christ, who chose to hang on a cross and die for us. He had all control, and he made his choice for us.

For many years the practice of my faith was on auto pilot. Although I have an intellectual bent, I did not delve as deeply into the Bible, the Catechism, the history, and the teachings of my faith. When I finally did do more, pray more, read more, learn more, question more, and give more of myself, very haltingly at first, I was met with a tsunami of love and guidance from God, from Jesus, and of course, by the Spirit.

I timidly knocked on the door, and Jesus flung it open instantly, pulled me in, hugged me, sat me at his banquet table and introduced me to the feast I had shunned for years.

Of course, it isn’t always that way. Your spiritual life takes surprising turns, slows down, stops even at times, according to your senses. But your own senses are not a good guide. Sometimes when you struggle the most, feel things the least, you have a moment of self examination of your last months and you see the long path you traveled without really knowing where you were going.

Don’t do faith by feel. Don’t wait for sensation, answers, joy, hope, knowledge. All those things and so many more, they will come, but never on demand. Get on your knees and pray. Daily. Read the Bible, find a church if you haven’t already. Give alms. Do a good deed.

Feel good religion has pretty shallow moorings. Row out into the deep. When the storms come, try to remember that He who calms the storm is always in the boat with you.

The Easter Triduum, the marking of the days of Jesus’ passion and resurrection, the  most important time of the church year, begins with the evening Mass of Holy Thursday, reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil, and closes on Easter Sunday evening. After preparing during the days of Lent, we celebrate these holiest of days in the Church year.

From John, Chapter 19:

Then Pilate tried to release him, but the Jewish leaders told him, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar’s. Anyone who declares himself a king is a rebel against Caesar.

At these words Pilate brought Jesus out to them again and sat down at the judgement bench on the stone paved platform. It was now about noon of the day before Passover.

And Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is your King!”

“What? Crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no King but Caesar,” the chief priests shouted back.

So they had him at last, and he was taken out of the city, carrying his cross to the place known as “The Skull,” in Hebrew, “Golgotha.” There they crucified him and two others with him, one on either side, with Jesus between them. And Pilate posted a sign over him reading “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” The place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and the signboard was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, so that many people read it.

Then the chief priests said to Pilate, “Change it from ‘The King of the Jews’ to ‘He said, I am King of the Jews.’ ”

Pilate replied, “What I have written, I have written. It stays exactly as it is.”

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they put his garments into four piles, one for each of them. But they said, “Let’s not tear up his robe,” for it was seamless. “Lets throw dice to see who gets it.” This fulfilled the scripture that says, “They divided my clothes among them, and cast lots for my robe.” So that is what they did.

Standing near the cross were Jesus’ mother, Mary, his aunt, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside me, his close friend, he said to her, “He is your son.”

And to me he said, “She is your mother.” And from then on, I took her into my home.

Jesus knew that everything was now finished, and to fulfill the scriptures said, “I’m thirsty.” A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so a sponge was soaked in it and put on a hyssop branch and help up to his lips.

When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished,” and bowed his head and dismissed his spirit.

Today we would like to invite you to share with us your reflections, your thoughts, your favorite readings on Good Friday. We sincerely hope that you will join in this conversation as a sharing of our common faith, an active searching, united in asking in this small way for God’s blessing upon His world this Easter Triduum. So many of us see change as something that is all or nothing. We postpone the changes we need to make in our lives to improve our relationship with God because we aren’t mentally “ready” to make that leap. In reality, our path to God is made in tiny steps, small differences, the little things that take us one step closer in faith.

We ask you to join us, help us, take that step. Together and seperately, may we aid each other through our words and prayers, to make this Good Friday an opening for the light that is Christ to penetrate our darkness.

I would also like to share a paragraph from The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In Her Magisterial teaching of the faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that “sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings the Divine Redeemer endured.” Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself, the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torment inflicted upon Jesus, a responsiblity with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone.

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Please respect the solemnity and purpose of this post and keep the comments on the Passion of our Lord.