Day Five: Good Friday

In Western Christianity, today is Good Friday. It commemorates the crucifixion and death of Christ. I decided to try out some Catholic observances.

Roman Catholics are supposed to fast on this day, however I can't imagine a day without food, so I went with the Latin Rite version of fasting, which involves one large meal and two small ones. I spent the majority of my morning and afternoon baking babka, a Ukrainian Easter bread, with one of my aunts, so that was the first of my small meals. Although I'm not sure if half a loaf of bread is considered a "small" meal. My large meal consisted of spinach dip, baby potatoes, and ham. Catholics are supposed to avoid meat on Fridays, but I couldn't turn down ham, since I only get it a few times a year. My second small meal was Jello and Cadbury Creme eggs. The definition of health food, I know.

Catholics also say prayers as acts of reparation to Jesus Christ (to repair the sins of others), so I tried one out.

"O Jesus, my Savior and Redeemer, Son of the living God, behold, we kneel before Thee and offer Thee our reparation; we would make amends for all the blasphemies uttered against Thy holy name, for all the injuries done to Thee in the Blessed Sacrament, for all the irreverence shown toward Thine immaculate Virgin Mother, for all the calumnies and slanders spoken against Thine spouse, the holy Catholic and Roman church. O Jesus, who hast said: 'If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you,' we pray and beseech Thee for all our brethren who are in danger of sin; shield them from every temptation to fall away from the true faith; save those who are even now standing on the brink of the abyss; to all of them give light and knowledge of the truth, courage and strength for the conflict with evil, perseverance in faith and active charity! For this we do pray, most merciful Jesus, in Thy name, unto God the Father, with whom Thou livest and reignest in the unity of the Holy Spirit world without end.
Amen."

That's the first prayer I've ever said, and let me tell you, it felt so wrong. First of all, it goes against every fiber of my atheist being to pray to someone I don't believe in. Correction: it goes against everything I believe in to pray in the first place. Secondly, I have trouble saying a prayer that mentions the Virgin Mary... can someone please explain to me how millions and millions of people actually believe in the concept of immaculate conception when it concerns Jesus? That's right up there with aliens and thetans and any other ridiculous idea (at least for me it is).

I can see that the Catholic faith is going to be one of my biggest obstacles in this experiment. I can't even say a simple prayer without getting a little angry inside. It just seems like such a crock of shit to me, and it frustrates me that people actually believe in it. But that's the purpose of this experiment... to learn about all faiths and become more tolerant. I clearly failed with that goal today.