One of the most somber days of the Christian calendar has arrived:Good Friday.
The holy day,which takes place a couple of days before Easter, commemorates Jesus Christ's sacrifice, more specifically the suffering and agony he faced leading up to his Crucifixion.
Good Fridayis a day for "sorrow, penance, and fasting," according toBritannica.
It is one of several Christian celebrations that pay homage to the events leading up to the Crucifixion and Christ's miraculous resurrection on Easter Sunday. The time period is known as Holy Week.
"Good Friday has been, for centuries now, the heart of the Christian message because it is through the death of Jesus Christ that Christians believe that we have been forgiven of our sins," Daniel Alvarez, an associate teaching professor of religious studies at Florida International University,previously told USA TODAY.
Here's what to know about Good Friday, including what date it falls on in 2026.
What is Good Friday? And when is it this year?
Good Friday commemorates "Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilate, his sentence of death, his torture, and his crucifixion and burial," according to theUniversity of Melbourne's Trinity College. The second-to-last day of Holy Week falls on Friday, April 3, this year.
Good Friday, for many Christians, is a "day of fasting, with the faithful attending a church service where they will meditate on and venerate the cross of Christ," Trinity College explains.
The Rev. Dustin Dought, executive director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, previously told USA TODAY that fasting is "a way of emptying ourselves so that we can be filled with God."
Catholics generally abstain from all forms of meat (sans fish) for Lent, a 40-day period, in the time leading up to Holy Week, including Good Friday.
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The Good Friday tradition is designed to honor the way Christ sacrificed his flesh.
Are Good Friday and Passover related?
Alvarez previously told USA TODAY that there was a "direction connection" between Good Friday andPassover, one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays.
"The whole Christian idea of atoning for sin, that Jesus is our atonement, is strictly derived from the Jewish Passover tradition," Alvarez said.
While Good Friday commemorates Christ's sacrifice and Passover celebrates the day the "Angel of Death" passed over the homes of Israelites, the "blood of the lamb" is a symbol and theme present in both stories.
In the Christian faith, Jesus is referred to as the "Lamb of God" and is believed to be the "Son of God."
According to Alvarez, the stories of the exodus and the crucifixion not only further tie the stories together but also emphasize how powerful sacrifice, specifically of a firstborn child, and bloodshed are in religion.
"Jesus is the firstborn, so the whole idea of the death of the firstborn is crucial," Alvarez said.
The sacrifice itself is important because it is believed to unleash "tremendous power that is able to fend off any kind of force, including the wrath of God," Alvarez said. Humanity is protected from the "wrath of a righteous God that cannot tolerate sin" because of Jesus' sacrifice.
Contributing: Jordan Mendoza and Julie Gomez, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:What is Good Friday? What to know about holy day.
