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
Holy Thursday
There is one part of Lent where Catholics really dropped the ball. And that would be Holy Thursday. Oh yeah, Protestants, Reform-Christians, crazy guys on the street claiming to be Jesus, you are getting some blame on this too, because it's such a golden, obvious opportunity that when you broke off like pissants because "our rules didn't make sense" or "every one of your leaders were corrupt", you had a chance to right Catholicisms wrongs. Instead they all opted to celebrate about 1/50th of the things Catholics do (and they call that an improvement?), but that's all a rant for another day.
Back to the point, Holy Thursday should be some much more badass and awesome. The Passover Seder has us beat. We shouldn't've allowed that. We should've made Holy Thursday an actual feast day*.
*I still think putting Thanksgiving on a Thursday was a too-late attempt to make up for this.
We should've let ourselves eat meat that Thursday. We celebrate the Eucharist - the metaphor that made us what we are - for fuck's sake. Yes, food is at the core of Catholicism. Instead of the long drawn out service (not mass) that's more somber than celebratory, we should have a grand meal with friends and family. Educate the young while scarfing down double bacon burgers with five cheeses and washing it down with milk. We are celebrating the break from the Kosher confines of Judaism after all. And what if Mark/Matthew/Luke/John would've included a speech about the rib of man or something? Then we'd get to eat ribs on Holy Thursday. Mass would be so much tastier. Oh how wonderful it could be.
Instead we get some weird foot washing ceremony and have to listen to the priest talk about a Jesus eating meal for two hours while I'm starving because I had to skip dinner to make it to the service on time.
Seriously Catholics, way to drop the ball!
My nitpicks: Technically, meat is allowed (if you're not giving up meat for Lent) But, it's true. For how much the C-church wanks to the Eucharist -- not a metaphor, by the way; actual dogma is that it's the literal, real thing, which makes us seem like even bigger nut jobs -- you would think there would be a bigger hoopla around it, at least bigger than the Assumption. Well, Mary is kind of a big deal. We love that bitch like she's a saint. Oh.... wait....
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But seriously, Holy Thursday is fucking useless!