The Stations of The Cross: I Get A Pass For Time Served

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If you've never seen a live version of The Stations of The Cross chances are you'll be taken back and stuck with awe when you see whoever is portraying Jesus. It's not often that I venture into "the big house"; most of the time the holy water starts to boil, the stained glass windows begin shaking and you can hear a faint creaking noise coming from the large wooden doors of the building. When I was younger I was in the extreme minority when it came to religion; oh sure there were Catholics and Christians but not a ton of them and certainly not enough to support a "church". Because of that I had to spend a good bit of travel time getting to and from church and school. Oh the sheer joy of having to use public transportation whilst wearing a parochial school uniform. Dare I say, even in jest, the uniforms were a pedophiles wet dream. Most of the kids that I attended school with were social misfits; by the time I landed at an all-girls boarding school for a year and a half I'd become jaded with the whole "do as I say, not as I do" quip that was a mainstay amongst the educators. Half the teachers were ordained nuns, the other half were lay people hired to fill in the gap. While the nuns loved their paddles and pointers I would have rather had them than the lay people. Get a nun talking about one of the lesser known points or exploits of the bible and they would talk for the entire 65 minutes of the class. The Stations of The Cross always captivated me; the highly detailed alcoves along the sides of the walls of the church were almost completely overlooked most of the year but when Lent was approaching it was the students that were tasked with cleaning them and preparing them for the upcoming services. I can only recall one single year when Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow sponsored a live version of the Stations of The Cross. It wasn't the expense of it or that it called for a lot of planning, it was the parish reaction to seeing the blood, hearing the crack of the whips and listening to the pleas of the actors to stop. Even though they were not actually being beaten, the did walk over two miles during the performance. That called for a few roads to be closed, older people needing assistance to get from station to station and of course a lot of extras to work for free (plus costume changes). Even with all of that, it's one of the most memorable things that I took with me when I graduated. It's sort of like reading about the Grand Canyon for a year and knowing every single factoid about it when actually seeing it in person. Everything you thought you knew just went out the window. Today I will be going to a later version of the Stations of The Cross; the weather is indicative of almost every other Good Friday that I can remember. I know that several of my neighbors are going to be there so I won't have to worry about feeling out of place, I think the priest is only used to seeing me for midnight mass for Christmas and when there's a funeral. The Stations of The Cross is supposed to tell the story of the last hours of Jesus' life, his death and resurrection. When I was in school all it meant to me was that God had absolutely no love for humans; if he was willing to put his son through that pain, torture and humiliation then what chance did mortals have if they were not in his good graces? It is supposed to show everyone how much God loved humans – so much that he was willing to sacrifice his only son (conflicting stories there) so that there was a pathway to redemption and forgiveness. Photo: http://tccov.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/stations-the-cross-place-setting-801220.jpg Have you ever walked the Stations of The Cross? Would you want to participate in a live version? Do you ever recall Good Friday having clear weather?