GranolaBox

As any recovering Catholic will tell you, good Friday is the day that all Catholics mourn their faith. Well, actually I felt that as a Catholic I mourned my faith every day. But on Good Friday you got an extra large dose of Catholic guilt. It was like opening a can of papal whoop-ass.

My most terrifying experience as a Catholic boy was on Good Friday when I was 12 or 13. That was the day I went to Good Friday mass for the first time. This was the day that I learned in graphic detail what happened to the person who at that time I was supposed to believe was my savior.

The whole experience is captured in horrific detail with the stations of the Cross. Basically, we would walk around the church where details of the murder and torture of Christ played out in front of us. It was glory as hell.

I mean, think about it, the guy is put before a kangaroo court in clear violation of his first amendment rights. Then, because the local authorities had him pegged as a troublemaker he was found guilty and sentenced to death. At the last minute the people in the crowd had a choice of killing either Christ or a thief named Barabbas. They chose to kill Christ.

The method of execution then used by the Roman state was crucifixion. Those to be crucified were lined up, given a heavy wooden cross, humiliated, stripped and been forced to carry the cross as the people watched in delight.

After that, the victim is placed on his cross with one nail in each hand and one bigger nail through both feet. The person hangs this way until they’re dead.

So there you have it, the number two source of Catholic guilt. Of course, the number one source is Original Sin. That’s the deal you feel just for being born.

After that, I did just about everything humanly possible to avoid Good Friday mass. In fact, as a form of rebellion I tried to commit some kind of hell-worthy offense while I was supposed to be at mass apologizing to the Savior on behalf of the crazed mob that killed him. That’s who we were.. that fucked-up bloodthirsty mob.

Fast forward to this past Good Friday. Doug and I I were out running some errands in the sports car, and one of the errands on our journey involved us scaling a very snowy hill. As we made our way up the hill, I noticed that at each corner, or at each particularly treacherous part of the road, there was a painting of one of the stations of the Cross with its description below.

I don’t know if all of the stations of the Cross were posted on the road but I got phone pictures of as many of them as I could. For all the non-Catholics out there I put in the stations that I didn’t have pictures of as well, just so you could share some of the guilt.

Jesus is condemned to death

Jesus receives the cross

Jesus falls the first time

Jesus meets His Mother

Simon of Cyrene carries the cross

Veronica wipes Jesus’ face with her veil

Jesus falls the second time

Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem

Jesus falls the third time

Jesus is stripped of His garments

Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross

Jesus dies on the cross

Jesus’ body is removed from the cross (Pieta)

Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense.

So, even today I’m haunted by this story, and the added bonus of getting a fictional walk-through as part of a yearly ritual. Yes, I feel that that Jesus died as a result of our allegedly being such bad people. Supposedly, Easter Sunday is supposed to make up for all of this gruesome shit. As far as I was concerned it never did.

I mean, sure the road really sucked, but it was nowhere near as bad as the crucifixion. I did however, get the general idea.

Filed under: General Observations on April 10th, 2008