Part 1: Mardi Gras
Part 2: Ash Wednesday
Part 3: Giving Shit Up
Part 4: No Meat
Part 5: Palm Sunday
Part 6: Holy Thursday
Part 7: Good Friday
Part 8: ...Saturday
Part 9: Easter Sunday
Part 10: The Ascension
Good Friday
It's called Good Friday, but can't we be honest and call it what it is: Depressed Friday. All day long is a bummer. Just people going on about "Jesus is dead", "they killed our Lord" (already missing the point by assigning blame "We killed our Lord"). Barabas is free to murder people. A bunch of teenage boys are roaming the streets without their guardian*. These are scary times. It's the one time we don't need Catholic guilt to make us feel bad.
*The Apostles and Jesus, if you didn't figure that one out.
They even ruin getting to go outside for class as kids by walking us through the Stations of the Cross. This is an obvious scare tactic and they were obviously short on material. Even as a 10 year old I thought 3 falls was less than subtle story filler. Jesus sees the women. Come on! How is that a stage? They just wanted to get it up to 12 stations**, or however many there are.
**I think it's 12. I never paid attention and a Google search is a whole tab away, so fuck research.
I was personally never a fan of Good Friday because I always had the desire to say "spoiler alert!" when they told the story.
Catholics would be better served to force introspection that day. Use that guilt to our advantage. "Why did you kill Jesus?" Give 'em a reason for Confession. Instead we get the odd collection of traditions that we have, like getting in line to touch a cross or some shit like that.
The whole day is a wash anyway because after over a month everyone is too busy thinking "only two days away from that Godiva chocolate I have waiting for me at home", or possibly wondering how late Moby Dick is open that night, since this is the second night in a row you had a 6'oclock service to get to so there's not a chance to have dinner first.
Good Friday service may, in fact, be the worst of all. Retraction: Second to Easter Vigil. And, in a really traditional C-church, you don't just touch that cross but kiss it. Germ alert! I don't want to make out with everyone in the whole damn church -- sorry Sister Agatha, my type is a little more manly -- regardless of a cloth wipe, which is suspect anyway. How does a cloth continually used for each kiss really clean it if they're just rubbing it with the same spittles over and over? Sorry for this sub rant, but it bugged me.
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