Thursday, 24 March 2016

Happy Easter, All

So it's Good Friday, and at the time of typing this, 3.35pm, presuming it's all true, then we have passed the time Our Lord commended his spirit to the hands of the Father, and expired.  Actually, it's probably not past the time because where I am is practising daily saving, so technically it's only 2.35pm, and there's still another 25 minutes to go before the actual 'time', which when I was a kid was always taken to be 3.00pm.  Double actually, it's probably not the right day, either, because Easter falls at different dates just about every year depending on the lunar cycle in March.

Of course what interests me the most about the whole Easter thing is the arrest and crappy trial of Jesus.  I understand the correct judicial procedure wasn't followed, so it's quite possible a good lawyer could have seen Jesus acquitted on a technicality.  The baying crowd demanding his crucifixion are very much like those clowns you get on social media these days calling for harsher penalties, and for judges and magistrates to be sacked, and all the usual bullshit incumbent with holding the position of armchair lawyer.  I go cross-eyed with fury when I read the malevolent ignorance, particularly as the comments are often peppered with misplaced apostrophes.

I should probably have gone to the Veneration of the Cross today, but I didn't. I recall the occasional Mass attendance on Good Friday when I was a kid, but surprisingly my late mother, a devout and staunch Catholic, did not take us to this service on a regular basis.  We had nuns at my school who would go bug shit if they heard someone had not attended the Mass.  'What were you doing?' demanded one nun, Sr Mary Ellen (aka Sr Pademelon).  This hapless kid replied he'd been watching television.  'Watching television!' she shrieked, her voice redolent with the disgust one might expect had the kid been watching a movie depicting someone up to his balls inside his stepdaughter.  I sat at my desk, quivering with fear she was going to ask me had I gone to the Mass service.  No amount of wheedling and pleading we'd attended the Easter Sunday Mass would see this vicious old hag give an inch of relent.  If asked was I too watching television, I would have to admit I was, but suggest given I'd been watching the old Easter standby 'King of Kings', then surely that would mitigate me having not gone to the Church to kiss the crucifix. 

That's something I miss about my childhood: the inevitable screening of Easter movies.  'King of Kings' was a favourite of mine, for some reason.  Maybe because the Jesus was such a deadset spunk, and probably looked nothing at all like the real Jesus of Nazareth.  I've just watched a scene from this movie on YouTube; the one where Salome dances for Herod. 

No Easter movies today, as far as I can tell.  There's a school in Bondi that's copped some flack for banning the word 'Easter' in its celebrations, as it attempts to be more inclusive of cultures.  But wouldn't a ban of this word be an exclusion of those who DO observe?  It really seems a bit daft.  But there's quite likely another side to the story and the media are doing their usual whip of the hoi polloi with articles about PC taking over.

But it's a fairly calm sort of day here.  I've been busy cleaning up the back patio area of my house, and working in my garden.  Now, I might pour wine and have a bath. 

To those of you who have read my post, and whether you observe or not, enjoy the next few days that comprise the Easter period.

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