All I want is a horrorshow girlflesh. What's so bad about that?

The New and Improved Crucifixion
Good Friday: Kill that God!

Yesterday may have been the first Good Friday Mass I've attended. I certainly can't remember any other spectacle like what I encountered yesterday. The Mass clocked in at one hour forty-five minutes, 75% longer than a standard Mass. It was wickedly Catholic. Father Bill has been going easy on all the old people and allowing us to sit during the lengthy Gospels of the last few Sundays; yesterday's was the longest yet, but he said he thought it important that we stand throughout. He didn't explicitly say it, but he wanted us to imitate, in that small way, Christ's suffering; the nobility of suffering is very big in Catholicism right now, what with the Holy Father crumbling before our very eyes.

After the lengthy Gospel recounting the Passion, came the Veneration of the Cross. It worked a lot like Communion, as we shuffled up the the front by pews. Many people kissed the large crucifix set before the Altar, and two altar boys were ready with wipes for use after each kiss. I set my hand on the statue's foot and bowed on one knee, not feeling any great desire to kiss it. After the Veneration of the Cross came a incredibly long offering of prayers. Instead of the reading of a short list and the congregation responding "Lord, hear our prayer," Father led us through a lengthy, formalized list of wishes. In the middle of each, Deacon Corder called for us to kneel, and we all kneeled in silence for ten or twenty seconds. Then, we'd rise and Father Bill would read the rest of the request and we'd all say, "Lord, hear our prayer." We did this somewhere between ten and twelve times. It was gloriously eccentric, though quite hard, I imagine, for some of the more geriatric parishioners.

By this point, over an hour had elapsed and we hadn't yet begun the preparation of gifts. We had the Body during Communion, but not the Blood. There are some Catholics who refuse to take Communion from a eucharistic minister and will only accept it from a priest (I'm not sure how they feel about deacons). I'm not one of their number, but I still prefer receiving Communion from the priest. Yesterday, I received my wafer-turned-flesh from Father Bill. Score! So, I went to Mass on Good Friday, got to enjoy a wonderfully bizarre Catholic ritual, received Communion from the pastoral vicar, and went to Mass in blue jeans and Chuck Taylors without feeling guilty. Catholicism Wow!

Prior to Mass, I drove to Skeeter's home church, Faith Lutheran, for a very powerful piece of music entitled "The Seven Last Words Jesus Spoke," or something like that. She recommended it highly. So, I've now been inside a Lutheran church, a Baptist church, a Presbyterian church, and the Episcopalian National Cathedral in D.C., and maybe one of two others for various concerts by the Mountain of Love. Man, being inside a Protestant church is weird. When people came in, they just walked right up to a pew and sat down. They didn't bow before the Altar (or is it an altar in Protestanism?) and they certainly didn't make the sign of the cross. Just walked in a plopped down without any ceremony. No one knelt down in prayer upon arrival because the pews didn't have any kneelers! Obviously, this means Lutherans don't kneel. How can it feel like church if you never kneel?

And then they ended up not playing the song. I assume they planned to do so at that evening's services, but there was nothing spectacular about that afternoon's music. All in all, it was a very odd experience. Like most Protestant churches, it was small and dark, maybe one third the size of Holy Redeemer, which afterwards felt cavernous and bright. And I'm not trying to be mean when I say Faith was dark, it's just that it was dimly illuminated. The stained glass windows were pretty, but admitted little light. Had there been more people in attendance, I can see how the church might feel cozy. But I like big churches; so, it felt small.

There is a Catholic church near the U of M campus, St. Mary Students' Parish, but I hate it there. I went sporatically during my first few years in Ann Arbor, partially because I was away from home for the first time and partiallyb ecause I really didn't like going to St. Mary. It was small and the music was played on acoustic guitars, not an organ. They served torn up chunks of bread, not Communion wafers. The church itself was almost Spartan inside; it felt much more like a Protestant church than a Catholic church. During my second and third years at 1213, with ready access to ample parking, I drove out to St. Francis on East Stadium, a larger church filled with families that felt much more like Holy Redeemer. I felt comfortable at St. Francis, and so I attended Mass more regularly.

In Dreams
Last night, I had a dream about the actor Natasha Melnick. She's only twenty; so, fortunately in my dream she appeared as she does in her forthcoming film Everything or Nothing, not as she did five years ago on Freaks and Geeks. That would have been very, very wrong. But whew, I'm in the clear. And my Bog, she is lovely.