Good Friday: what we do

Numbers were up at both the Holy Thursday and Good Friday Liturgies. After a lengthy period of Confessions on Good Friday I had a brief chat with some people in the street, well actually in the main shop street, I normally avoid this on Good Friday, it really was incredibly busy with shoppers, a bit shocking really.

Anyhow, these people had just been for a walk, they had come quite a distance. “We always come here for Good Friday”, they said, “Peter likes it”. Peter was a quiet sixteen year old.
“Why?” I asked him.
“It is way you do it,” he answered.

We actually don’t do too much. There are no hymns for example, the organ is silent. Silence, even boredom, plays an important part in the Liturgy. I try to follow the rubrics; we don’t have hymns of course, and just use the texts in the Missal. The Passion is read by me, as Christ, Fr William a retired priest and a lector, the people listen.
At the intercessions, which I sing, we all face the East including me; we have a reasonably long period of silence, when we kneel of course.
During the Veneration of the Cross the Reproaches are sung with the Trisagion in Greek, the rest in English.
The Crucifix is placed on the East side of the altar and the Communion Rite is celebrated facing that direction.
The collect, prayer after communion and the prayer over the people are sung recto tono.The thing that Peter seemed to like was the Eastward facing, but if you read the rubrics that seems the only way possible, any way else seems to sideline the Cross.