Good Friday at a Catholic Church

Image by wichai bopatay from Pixabay 

It was a hot day. I ate my lunch, sweating. My husband and I sweated and grunted through our dim sum and piping Chinese tea. We sweated and stacked the plates once we had finished eating. 

We sweated in the sun, beating down our backs, leaving the Kopitiam and walking to our car.

"Enjoy your Good Friday service later." The husband rubbed his mouth with his hand and wiped the perspiration off his brow as he turned the knob of the air conditioning to blast cold wind in our faces. 

"I hope so," I muttered. 

Recently, I've fallen in love with Catholic traditions and liturgical forms. Yet I was unsure about Good Friday. Maybe I had had a tiring week before this, or it was because Palm Sunday the week before had delved into death and the finitude of life so thoroughly I felt like a bleeding open wound when Monday arrived. An Evangelical Protestant, I am more accustomed to uplifting worship songs, modern Easter plays with neat endings, and laughter during sermons peppered with humour. I did not expect to see the crucifixion reenacted before my eyes, with Mary shrieking in agony, Roman soldiers hammering nails, and Jesus being whipped on stage. 

This surreal encounter with a culture that unflinchingly grapples with death and suffering has caught me in a strange limbo. It is said that when someone moves overseas, s/he experiences "culture shock". The process has four stages  - honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment, and adaptation. I vacillate between negotiation and adjustment, idealising my former faith community, missing the warmth of a spiritual home with familiar faces, yet looking forward to understanding a new, 'strange' tradition and having made some new acquaintances. While I have not migrated to another country, I am experimenting with some potentially transgressive borders, switching from the Protestant to the Catholic tradition (which is equivalent to moving to an enemy/rival territory and would therefore trigger gasps of horror from certain quarters: "What, you worship statues now? I am so disappointed in you!" "How could you pray to Mary? I can't believe you. Look how far you've fallen!"). 

I hear you, dear Protestant reader. I, too, have yet to learn what I am doing. Having reflected on my Protestant leanings and the grave possibility that my exploration of Catholic grounds is supposedly 'sacrilegious', I am determined to keep an open mind and evaluate my spiritual journey in a principled and grounded manner. I tell myself I will utilise my observational skills to notice the rituals and ceremonies that could fascinate my husband when I recount the mass for his curiosity. 

Most importantly, l will not fall asleep in the afternoon heat with my head rolling precariously sideways in a crowd of strangers. Not on Good Friday.

The problem with Good Friday is that it was also a hot Friday. I arrived at the church and smiled at the cheerful usher, who gave me a tip: "Choose a seat where the air is cooling". A foreboding knot formed in my stomach in response to her kind advice. I rolled up my sleeves. They were long and thick sleeves. Sweat trickled down my back as I took my seat. 

To provide context, I usually shiver in my t-shirt at the morning masses. Why didn't I just bring a  sweater? I must never forget to bring my sweater when I come to church.  I would berate myself as I hunched over, a nearby fan stuck to the wall blowing gusts of wind that whipped strands of hair across my face leaving me with a Medusa-like appearance. To withstand the astonishing forces of Panasonic wall fans, I had chosen to wear attire with a material fit for a blizzard. Fantastic.

While I perspired in my long-sleeved blouse and wool pants that would weather the coldest cinema in Malaysia, the crowd swelled in the church sanctuary. As people streamed in, the pews filled up, and now four of us occupied each pew. The reader should be informed that I am small-sized, but the rest of my pew neighbours aren't. I sat upright and pressed my knees together to shrink myself further so my pew neighbours and I were comfortable, happy sardines in a neat, tight can. But we had to be sardines without our shoulders touching and rubbing against each other since that wouldn't be appropriate behaviour. The church management had also not lifted the mask-up mandate for the safety of most parishioners, including the elderly, and my mask stuck to my face, thick and heavy. You do your job so well, KF94. 

The Stations of the Cross began as the air grew thin, and the congregation stood, kneeled, and stood. Then we kneeled and stood. Wait, are we kneeling again? This is definitely the last time we are kneeling. Please let it be the last time. No? Okay. I can do this. I can kneel. I've kneeled multiple times before this. I'm fully abled, so don't be a baby. Please tell me I get to sit down now. Nope, we're standing again. God help me.  

I prayed for the strength to persevere (as there are 14 stations). At the same time, the congregation, through guided prayer, reflected on the plight of marginalised sex workers and migrant workers, childless mothers, the LGBT-identifying community, people who had lost loved ones to Covid-19, and other heartbreaking issues afflicting the human race. As our legs ached and we dropped to our knees, we plunged into the depths of our imaginative abilities to think and feel the most isolating and depressing situations anyone could experience against the backdrop of Jesus falling three times while carrying the cross to Golgotha. 

Soon enough, as we progressed to the station where Jesus was stripped naked, I could feel a lump welling up in my throat, which wasn't pretty. Was I emotionally moved by the victimisation of Jesus on the cross and the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire? Or was I upset that I had subjected myself to alternate between kneeling and standing for nearly an hour? I did not wish to be sent to the cry room (a space catered for parents to take their children or babies so their cries don't interrupt a mass in session).  Come now. Get it together. Take deep breaths. 

When we reached the final station, I sniffled in my mask, adjusting it like a cat obsessively pawing at a bee sting on its nose, feeling half-drained, half-mortified that my mask might leak mucus. I furtively looked around, aching for someone to give me a wink as if to say, hey, I see you. Tricky business, huh, this Catholic stuff. But everyone seemed unfazed and nonchalant, their stoic gaze fixed and focused on the altar. Are you all superhuman or something? 

The actual Good Friday mass began after the Stations of the Cross as if the entire ordeal had not been enough. A reading of Genesis began, or was it from Isaiah? While I am confident the articulation of verses was clear and robust, the words swam helplessly in my fatigued consciousness. I sat up and adjusted myself, and sat up again. It was as if Christ had said, "It is finished," and I, too, felt like I was finished. Perhaps, because of the monosodium glutamate levels in the dim sum and my internal struggle with the dam of emotions building up in my chest, the salivary glands in my mouth seemed to have ceased their function. And I had no recourse for this unfortunate situation since Catholics, being biologically superior, fast from water and food before Communion. While I'm not Catholic and would not be taking Communion, drinking from my 2-litre water bottle at this point would have been equivalent to drinking and eating in front of Muslims fasting for their Ramadan.

I've since learnt that Catholics would refrain from eating or drinking before Communion to heighten one's expectation of receiving Jesus. If this is the case, a non-Catholic like me who does not participate in Communion is suspended in dry-mouthed anticipation for Communion that does not quite arrive. This may be the point. To be one with Christ in suffering agony, an outsider with only a vinegared sponge dabbed on cracked lips. How did Christ take to that anyway? Isn't vinegar sour? What does Roman vinegar wine taste like, exactly? Wouldn't it have been better if Christ had been given iced water instead? Doesn't iced water sound good? Stop it. Just. Stop. 

Another reading ensued, and I didn't even know from which book because I obviously was paying undivided attention to the idea of iced water, my tastebuds, and my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. Is this how a hangover is supposed to feel like? To be cotton-mouthed with a migraine slowly developing like the gathering of rainclouds? By now, my mind had turned into a wild monkey swinging from one branch of thought to another, chattering about iced Ribena, iced orange juice, ice cream, being a misfit, what Holy Saturday could be like and what the candles could possibly mean, how do we know if the resurrection truly happened and am I overthinking this, why am I constantly questioning things in life, why am I even here. 

I was jolted into the present as the choir broke into song, and someone behind me joined in with loud, tuneless singing. With the sombre heaviness and grief at Jesus on the cross juxtaposed with offkey squawking, it was difficult to restrain a giggle. Where I once fought back the tears from imagining economic, cultural and political oppression scenarios during the Stations of the Cross,  now I had to suppress laughter because someone was singing terribly. My chest began to ache, and I feared my ribs would soon crack from the surmounting pressure to keep a straight face. I also realised we had arrived at a  point where we were supposed to leave our pews, line up and take turns putting roses on a giant wooden Jesus on a cross lying on the ground before the altar. The trouble was that I had drifted into a liminal state where I was half-amused, half-fatigued, and half-tormented by thirst. And I had to show Jesus on the cross reverence while I was in this agonising state. 

When it was the turn of my pew neighbours and me to walk to the altar and revere Jesus, I realised this was an entirely serious affair. People were piously bowing before the cross. Some even kissed the wooden feet of Jesus. So I know I am not completely in the mood right now. But please accept my imperfect, half-assed adoration, Lord. I touched the foot of the wooden Jesus. 

When I came home, my husband was lounging on the bed, watching a video on YouTube. "How was it?" he asked. 

"Uh, very intense lah." I replied. I made a beeline for the kitchen, then proceeded to pour myself a big mug of chilled soya bean with brown sugar before gulping down the drink.