Good Friday

So I went to Good Friday mass this past Friday and was hard pressed to find a seat. This old couple was kind enough to scoot over so I accepted their invitation and made myself comfortable. Well as comfortable as you can in a wooden pew. The mass went along as expected until we got to the part where the priest reads ten holy prayers associated with Good Friday tradition. Mind you he is a pretty quick talker as it is so when we get to the part of the prayer where it says in small letters in the prayer 'kneel' the priest yells out to the crowd "KNEEL!" So we go down for the kneel and no more than a half a second later he shouts "STAND!" I literally didn't even get down into the kneel before he was yelling at me to stand. I say to Grandpa next to me "Oh my goodness" but when I turn to look at grandpa he was having quite the hard time trying to get up in accordance with the quick commands of the priest. I thought it might have just been a fluke but the second prayer came around and he yells "KNEEL" so I drop down on the kneeler but no sooner had my knee cap brush the top of the kneeler pad than the priest yelled "STAND!" At this point I am just awestruck. It is like we are doing more of an aerobic exercise instead of praying and poor gramps next to me can't keep up. It flashes though my mind that we should be doing football runs in between each bark of "KNEEL"/"STAND". We go through all ten prayers repeating this pattern but I have noticed that some have opted not even to kneel because it is just too hard of a regime to keep up at that pace. Not grandpa next to me. By God he must have been an athlete in his day because this guy pushed through the joint pain and kept right on creaking down and slowly pulling himself up. What a trooper.

After the ten prayers it was time to go and pay your reverence to the cross. This is a time where you walk up to the front and touch the cross and bow or kiss the cross. This is another Good Friday tradition that I have come to expect. What I am not expecting however is when the cantor announces the song that will be sung while everyone makes their journey up to meet the cross. "Everyone please turn in your Glory and Praise to number 31, Behold The Wood." Ummm, seriously? I mean I know that we are as a people trying to understand the ramifications of nailing Jesus to the cross but couldn't the composer pick a better name? To make it worse the song just kept repeating "Behold The Wood." I looked around me for anyone else taking exception with this song, especially this song being sung in church but apparently I was the only tainted one in the church because grandmas, grandpas, brothers, sisters, mothers, etc. were all belting out Behold The Wood! I bet some of those guys in the crowd that were non-believers had a whole new outlook about the Catholic church when they left mass that day.