The Procession on Great and Holy Friday: A Literary Recollection

 Introduction

The Byzantine Rite's Vespers for Great and Holy Friday ends with a beautiful and solemn procession with the shroud, with has an image of the dead Jesus lying in the tomb; the procession ends by placing the shroud in a replica tomb.  The faithful then approach the tomb—traditionally, on their knees—to venerate the shroud.   

Below is a description of this procession, which I wrote in 2015.  At the time, my parish was housed in the basement of a former convent; as we walked through the darkened halls with the shroud, we would pass an old mural of a deer in the forest ("As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after thee, O God" (Ps 42:1, Douay-Rheims)).  This is my literary recollection of this experience.

Great and Holy Friday 

For that night, we were outside the gates of Jerusalem, accompanying a bloodied corpse. That Missouri basement faded away as the penumbra enwrapped us and angels’ wings carried us to that darkest of dusks. We passed the old murals of the grand forests filed with harts yearning for running streams, but the streams were dry that night. A mourning hymn echoed, echoed, through all the deserted halls as sorrow’s desert dried us. For our priest was carrying a body: the body of our Savior.

The spices that the Marys and Salome poured out, drenching the rock, now wafted from the censer as smoke veiled our sight. Though the temple veil was torn, the veil of death was still unrent.  

Our group of mourners, though small, still outnumbered those on that great day of preparation. There was the wobbling priest with muscles weak, yet he bore Him Whom none can bear. There was the plumber with suspenders proclaiming “Holy!” in ancient tongues. There was the little girl who, finally this year, had ceased to suck her thumb. There were the scientists abounding and the theologians sounding, with all the rest, that sweet entombment chant.

Through paths we did not know that Body led us. Across thresholds unfathomed He did guide us. Yet past those echoing basement halls, we still saw the Temple walls, the walls of the city that put to death our Savior. We continued to march on, farther, farther, from those walls, approaching that tomb outside the gates. Though ours was well-used before, it symbolized the virgin door, that portal through which no body had yet entered. But we had not yet reached it. 

The songs and thoughts of all that week resounded in our tear-stained minds. Just days ago, had we not been greeting Him within those holy gates? Did not palms and pussy willows quiver with delight as we cried “Hosanna!” to our Lord? Did not later that loving woman flood His feet with oil rich, and were we not likewise anointed? Yet not all received His Holy Gifts in justice, but one received Him and yet, kissing Him, did kill Him. That great Liturgy, as each one, took us to two Jerusalems: we joined Christ in the Upper Room and joined Him before His Throne above. With the cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels, and with all those just believers who have pleased Him through the ages, we worshiped in the Heavens above; and with His apostles in the city of David, we heard His blessing of the bread and wine, and we received His Body and Blood. But then He was taken captive, bound and beaten, struck and spit upon, mocked and mangled. The procurator turned Him over to the mob despite His innocence, and we were the mob by our sins. Then He carried that three-wooded Cross—the pine, the cedar, and the cypress—amidst the whips of the guards and the scorn of the mob, the tears of the women and the shoulder of the Cyrenian. But all of these days led to that stark ninth hour, when the Lord Who had hung for three hours, handed over His spirit and fell asleep in death.

Then we carried that Body, the Body without a broken bone, the Body with the pierced side. Joseph and Nicodemus processed with us, as did Mary and the sorrowful women, as we escorted the Lord to His new-hewn tomb. Our small congregation joined with those of every Christian time and nation in walking with the pall-bearers of Christ. So we sang the song of the noble Joseph, who received that glorious Body, wrapped it in a clean shroud, anointed it with fragrant spices, and laid it in burial in a virgin tomb.

That night, as every year, we approached our replica of that tomb, and, as the candles flickered throughout that home-made chapel, the shroud was laid in the tomb, and all the faithful bowed before it, kissed it, and praised it, for it was the shroud of the Lord. Christ was then laid in the tomb, and there was no great prophet to raise Him, as He raised Lazarus and as Elijah and Elisha did in the days of old. But we knew with certainty what those first pall-bearers and myrrh-bearers may have only suspected: “Myrrh is fitting for the dead, but the Holy One is not subject to corruption.” 

Text ©2025 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.