"Father forgive them, they know not what they do......"
I believe those words are from Luke's Gospel but I'm not really sure. Sorry for the graphic image but since today is Good Friday I though it was appropriate to show the reason why most of us got the day off from work or classes. For those of you that are Western Chrisitains ( shout outs to my peeps in the Eastern Orthodox faiths who are just going into Lent.)Today was the day the party essentially ended. JC the hippie carpenter of Nazareth just got killed in the most dreadful fashion. (Crucifixion was considered so horrifying that Roman Citizens could not be subjected to it under Roman law.) I could go into theories of who's really to blame (The Romans or the High Priests although I think Pontius Pilate is the real bad guy in the story....at least from the research I've done on him...and after all if I'm Caphias the high priest I'm not going to want my butt nailed to a cross, so I'm going to crack down on any dissidents even if they are peaceful and if they been pissing me off for the last 3 years it's an added bonus.Caphias and the high priests condemning Christ could be the one of several examples of a religious group trying to CTA (cover their ass)with the government.) I could go into the whole Judas thing, Possessed, ignorant, wanting to rebel rouse take your pick although I don't really think that he knew they were going to Crucify the guy, he proceeded to hang himself after the fact....needless to say alot of things happended to get to the gory spectacle above, and it holds alot of truth to Today's society. Are we any less selfish or violent then we were 2000 years ago? Are we really in a better situation? Was the crucifixion just one of another spectacles in a sad history of human violence, when innocent blood was shed because of irrational hatred, greed or a trival show of political strength? Do we continue to witness several smaller scale crucifixions as people are enslaved in sweat shops, slaughtered like cattle in Dufour, kept from life saving drugs and treatments because of corporate greed, repressed when they demonstrate for human and civil rights, emotionally and physically destroyed fighting in senseless war, struggle to make ends meet because some CEO somewhere might make less than a $300 million bonus or might have to reduce the company profit margin to do the right thing.
Do we continue to drive nails into the hands and feet of humanity, when courrpted servants of God desecrate a sacred office by harming innocent children, when we care too much over the "fluff" in religious doctrine and forget the main message to "love one another" without qualifiers, without terms, without conditions. Do we scourge humanity when we argue a gay person should be deprived civil rights yet claim to value seperation of church and state and equality for all, or condemn women who get abortions yet we expect everyone to follow some 1950's esque status quo and provide no saftey net for single parents, when 200 years ago we oursleves were fleeing religious and civil persecution, yet now feel that we can persecute others?
Is indeed The crucified Christ not only a symbol of God's love and selfless compassion, or human suffering in one man
but for the AIDS patient, the single mother, the Palestinian Arab, The Israeli Jew, The Sweatshop worker, the Tibetian Monk, The Burmese civilian, the victim of genocide and/or domestic violence, the harassed altar boy, the Lab researcher searching tirelessly for a cure fo Cancer, ALS, AIDS, and the other ills of humanity, The innocent man on death row, the Iraqi civilian, the US soldier, The reformer, the peace keeper, the homosexual, the orphan, the widow, indeed all of us......
On a lighter note:
This morning I noticed my picture once again on the Front page of the Waterbury Paper, this time in my whole Eucharistic Minister garb ( well it was during the whole washing of the feet thing, no caption and I was the dude taking all the dirty towels.)...that aside , nothing really on tap. Tomorrow is a busy day for me. I'm in the branch until 12:30 then out to Woodbury for a ride with Speed Racer, then Mass at 8Pm at the Shrine, then home to help clean up and hide little plastic eggs filled with cavity giving treats, for my siblings. Then Sunday dinner with the fam and trying desperately to do the work I procrastinated doing all week. have started job searching for positions on the West Coast, because Ideally I'd like to move out there after graduation. My Parents have mixed feelings on this. While they have stated that "hey do what you have to do" I believe that is their secret intention that I get a real estate license, become part of the family conglomerate, and live at home until I marry a nice local girl and move next door. While I admire the plans for a family commune, I feel that Connecticut is not the place I want to live out the rest of my life....granted I know I would be missed if I moved....regardless it is at least a year before I have to start worrying about that.
Sorry if this seems to be an ADD-esque distraction, I started typing this before the deep reflection posted above so if this seems trival in comparision I aplolgize deeply.
The World famous overglorified Altar Boy.
R.D.
I
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