Post-Holy Week Guilt

Spending what was supposed to be a summer holiday under the sun has left me, not only with browner skin, but a muddy-stained conscience, as well.

Growing up, Holy Week was observed with much piety and reflection, partly influenced by the stiffling dictates of a rigid Catholic school, but mostly because of parents who believed in old folks' tales of evil spirits who freely walked the earth immediately preceeding the Good Friday of Christ's death. As a consequence, we were raised believing in rather stiff spiritual absolution mixed with a good deal of fearful superstition.

University came, and with it a mini-renaissance. Let out to run free in the world, or at least a world as big as our financial resources would allow, my siblings and I eschewed most things religious and embraced with abandon all things hedonistic. This included leaving out the “holy” in Holy Week, and cavorting in beaches, under waterfalls, or beside rivers, as soon as this long Catholic holiday hit the calendars.

Lately, though, as I get on in years, and my own children frolic in waters I vowed never to taint with fanatic religious fervor or superstitious belief, I feel a gaeity that is shallow, and a happiness colored in a new shade called empty.

Afterwards, I seek out the churches of my youth, and sit staring at the altar wondering how to get closer. Because I have been feeling so far away, and so out of touch. Perhaps, I should reflect more? Or finish my prayers before I fall asleep? Abstain? Fast?

I read somewhere that guilt is the sole province of a vengeful Christian God, or at least the God His Church professes He is. No other religion inspires so much flagellation of back and conscience, particularly for Catholics during the Holy Week. Enlightened and very much aware of the world, I still fall prey to this blight of consciousness.

An ex-boyfriend once regaled me of his family's tradition of doing the stations of the cross at several churches during the Holy Week. This struck me as fairly restrictive at the time. Why relive scenes of pain and suffering, over and over and over again, in the repressive first heat of summer, when the siren call of the sea and the inviting whisper of tropical palms beckoned. Ever a creature of the sun, I heeded each call.

I look at my children now, eyes and teeth shining white in their newly browned faces, and I wonder if the road I am paving for them will eventually lead to a hollow spiritual core. The same core now echoing my teeny voice in a cavernous dark, over and over and over.