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Monday, March 9. 2009
Doing the Stations
Ever just sit there and wonder what to write about? Right now, I’m sitting here, staring at a picture of the lovely Jo Garcia, Playboy’s 2008 Cyber Girl of the Year. The only clothing is a bracelet.We don’t know yet for sure who the 2009 Cyber Girl of the Year is, but I’m speculating it’s either Kristina Jarvis or Jia Lynn. I voted for Jia, she’s from Sandy Eggo, but Kristina wouldn’t be a disappointment at all!
So, I’m sitting here, reading the replies on Twitter and FaceBook and having lurid and prurient thoughts about Jo — and now Jia and Kristina — wondering what to do next. Can’t really do anything with or about the lurid tales my imagination is cooking up while looking at these three women; a week ago I had an angiogram and was told not to … err … excite … that area of my anatomy for a week.
Not that I would be doing anything unspeakable on a Sunday Afternoon during Lent. I was raised a good Cat’lick and there are some things we just don’t do! I still refrain from eating meat on Fridays! Okay, that’s only because here in Sunny San Diego McDonalds has their wonderful Filet O’Fish for $1.29 on Fridays!
The fish comes smeared with tartar sauce, but my friend Dan insists on putting ketchup on his. To each his own of course.The good old days of growing up in a good Catholic home. No meat on Fridays, going to church every Holy Day of Obligation as well as Sundays, not to mention Confession on Saturdays. I don’t recall ever telling a priest anything that was actually going on in my thoughts during confession. It was, by Vatican doctrine, pretty damn sinful. Pretty much the same thoughts I’m having now, only now my visual aids are far more … picturesque. We live in a wonderful age!
Sometimes I miss the ritual of it all, especially during Lent, a most solemn time of year. The smell of incense, that course smoke filtered throughout the church, every Mass with a different meaning, the Stations of the Cross led solemnly by a priest, maybe two, and a cavalcade of alter boys.
After Vatican II, priests general dressed in simple robes for Mass, instead of the brightly colored robes I remember from the time when the clergy led Mass with their backs to us. During Lent, the priests would don those bright, glittery robes for Mass and the really cool purples robes for the Stations of the Cross. Fourteen stations in all, each with its incantation spoken by the priest, the congregants answering with an incantation.
I always wanted to be the alter boy who carried the smoking orb with smelly incense. The incense is how we knew the rite that was being performed was extra special. We didn’t get that on just any old Sunday.
The fourteen Stations of the Cross: 1) Jesus is Condemned to Death; 2) Jesus carries His cross; 3) Jesus Falls for the First Time; 4) Jesus Meets His Mother; 5) Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry the Cross; 6) Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus; 7) Jesus Falls For the Second Time; 8 ) Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem; 9) Jesus Falls a Third Time; 10) Jesus’ Clothes Are Taken Away; 11) Jesus is Nailed to the Cross; 12) Jesus Dies on the Cross; 13) The Body of Jesus is Taken Down From the Cross; 14) Jesus is Laid in the Tomb.
Before doing the actual stations though, there is an opening rite called the Act of Contrition. The entire rite takes over an hour if the priest does it with all the solemnity the occasion requires. Growing up we did the Stations at least once a week, sometimes more because we were always encouraged to do the Stations on our own, without the priest leading.
You could go inside church, in our case, St. Gregory the Great on the Southside of Milwaukee, at just about any time of day and find other parishioners doing exactly the same thing; going through the Stations.Each Station begins with a prayer and ends with a prayer, the same ones with each station. Between the prayers are meditations designed to coincide with the meaning, or principle, of each Station.
Back in the day, my mind was seldom on the meditations, but on other worldly ambitions. Like they are today, only back then I was thinking of the girls in the church, if there were any hot ones doing the Stations, or girls I knew from school or the neighborhood.
Can’t imagine adults can understand this — oh wait, I’m an adult — well, parents don’t understand this, but young boys just entering puberty really don’t have the ability to focus on something as slow and boring as the Stations of the Cross. I’m betting most girls at that same stage in life are the same, although their dreams and fantasies are stylistically different.
How do I know this? Well, leaving the various details aside, I’ve had “deep” conversations with girlfriends before and there are those times when we seemed to be reading from different scripts.
“Do these pants make my butt look big?”
“No. I doubt it’s the pants.”
No woman will ever tell us what the correct response is to that question by the way; it’s part of their arsenal of traps and once your Beloved Immortal asks you that question, it has already snapped shut.
It’s a mystery to me how men remained married for a very long time. I have a brother who has been married to the same woman for … a long time. My hat’s off to him.
Now, after writing this and trying to go through the Stations of the Cross on the Catholic.org website, I’m convinced getting through the actual Stations would be just as tedious and full of distractions as it was all those years ago. I didn’t even read all the meditations — just like when I was 12.
Some things never change.
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