Goodbye, Good Friday? Holy day ‘dramatically' losing prominence as times change

Time was many towns would practically shut down from noon to 3 p.m. Good Friday afternoon, the time it's believed Jesus hung on the cross before dying.

Businesses would close and people would crowd churches.

No more.

Bishop Keith Ackerman said cultural observance of Good Friday has changed from his childhood "to such an extent that I can barely recognize it."

"This may be one of the most dramatic cultural shifts that I've witnessed," he said.

Growing up in McKeesport, Pa., the 61-year-old bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy, Ill., said school was always out on Good Friday.

"Every store in town was closed between noon and 3," he said. "Banks without question were closed. No business transactions were conducted between noon and 3. Movie theaters were not open on Good Friday, and the local restaurants would not serve meat on that day.

"It was as if life had come to a standstill on Good Friday."

The Rev. Barry Long, pastor at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Peoria, Ill., had much the same experience growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. And he sees the same changes.

"As I look around today, it's a rare business that would close down at all on Good Friday," he said.

Some Christian leaders are happy that schools typically are still out for Good Friday, but that doesn't mean families will show up for afternoon services. Working parents will still be on the job unless they use vacation or personal time.

Churches have had to adjust their Good Friday observance over the years to allow for attendance by those who work during the day. Evening services are now the norm. Some churches still hold afternoon services, but pastors say they're not as well-attended.

One of the results of the decrease of Good Friday's impact on the general culture has been an increase in Christian ignorance of the importance of the day's events, Quincy's bishop said.

Ackerman said he became aware of that change while a priest in Charloi, Pa.

"What was shocking to me was that we discovered how many Christians now do not observe Good Friday," he said.

Too many believers go "from one buzz to the other buzz" by observing Palm Sunday, which recalls Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, to Easter Sunday, which commemorates the resurrection, he said. Good Friday is largely ignored.

"It's a bit like hearing that somebody is going to die, not visiting them during their pain and suffering, but showing up for the celebration after the funeral," Ackerman said. "It's part of the cultural reality of trying to avoid pain at all costs. It's part of the narcissism and the hedonism that I'm afraid has crept into our reality today."

Monsignor Paul Showalter, vicar general of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and pastor of St. Bernard's Catholic Church in Peoria, said one reason for the change may be the rise of a "multireligious" society. That change is reflected in a less communal recognition of such observances as Good Friday, he said.

Mount Calvary's Long said that "folks have just gotten so busy that the thought of taking time out for Good Friday, which is a pretty depressing day, seems a lot more foreign in people's consciousness than it was."

What to do?

Long said it's up to the church to re-establish the importance of Good Friday among its own people first.

"My sense is that the burden remains on the local congregation, the local faith communities, to try and encourage their people to see the value of setting aside time for worship and prayer on the day that, really, from a Christian perspective, represents the pinnacle of the means by which people have been saved," Long said.

"We can't look to secular culture to be a handmaiden for us anymore," he said. "Now it's back on our shoulders."

Ackerman said there needs to be "a healthy conversation among people in business and in government and in education, along with the churches, to find new ways of showing a respect for what is really important."

He won't be taking the day off on Friday, though. After spending time in his private chapel in the morning, he'll preside at a service at noon at the Church of St. Andrew the Apostle, then head to St. Paul's Cathedral for outdoor stations of the cross at 3 p.m. and for indoor stations at 7 p.m.

A busy day.

But after all, it's Good Friday.

Michael Miller can be reached at mmiller@pjstar.com.