Today there are stations of the cross presentations in public spaces.
It's a very brutal spectacle around which our culture has been built. You've got children watching as a choice is made between brutalizing one of two people, then soldiers whipping Jesus in public, then all the violence to come...
The sheer hypocrisy of so much Western outcry over children being allowed to learn about other violence in their national histories, or different forms of love, when *this* is annual pageantry.
Just as An and Inanna and all the other gods of Uruk passed away... and Thor and Loki... and Ba'al and Asherah and all the other Canaanite pantheon gods from which only Yahweh now survives...
One day our religions will fade as well, with all their strange elaborate stories...
And then our descendants will look back on this era of pageantry and think "whew! glad we're not primitives like that anymore"... before going about their own weird rituals in service to the gods to come. 🙃
@MLClark Speaking of brutal spectacles ... Earlier this week I popped into the Catholic church where I was raised. The Stations of the Cross was a routine event, especially as an altar boy.
While inside the church, I was reminded that the windows are marked for the twelve Stations of the Cross. I remembered having to pray on a rosary at each station.
Catholic rules are complicated.
But I did notice the confessionals are gone, so there's that.
@WordsmithFL Wow - this brings back memories of the many Good Friday afternoons I spent kneeling in a Catholic Church. I can’t say the memories are good ones, but I do think it is sometimes good to remember. Thank you! @MLClark
@HopeSeeker When I saw the confessionals were gone, I thought, "Well, someone in Marketing finally convinced them that guilt doesn't sell."
That said, I did drop two bucks in the votive candle box, because I like candles.
@WordsmithFL @MLClark Glad to hear some confessionals are gone. Here in NE KS we are plagued by a bunch of fanatic Catholics who recently built a new, obscenely expensive church in a very small town. In a 2022 article they brag about their confessionals. The Catholic Church has way too much money! https://www.anewimmaculata.org/blog/2022/9/1/behind-the-scenes-september-2022-update
@MLClark @WordsmithFL Of course all of us like candles! 😇
What an uncanny experience, to return to a place that was once a whole world, and now doubtless feels all the smaller for the wealth of life lived well beyond its walls.
Hope it was a lovely visit to the region, all the same!
@MLClark I was going to visit the famous San Juan Capistrano mission today, but your post reminded me it's Good Friday so it's probably super busy.
Indigenous enslavement aside, I do love its history and serenity.
@MLClark such a weird 'tradition'