Good Friday is oddly named. It’s the day, in the life of Catholics, to say the stations of the cross by walking the walk with a savior man who was too young to die and was so much better than imagination can imagine.

In Elmhurst’s Immaculate Conception Church, the oil paintings depicting the stations of the cross ringed the exterior walls like a necklace. To say the stations of the cross required reverence and it required time, neither of which were ever forthcoming, except on Good Friday.

There was a belief that the more often you said the stations of the cross, the better, like practicing for a marathon of suffering. But, by the time you arrived at the nailing on the cross, believe me, the bleak darkness of sin was on you like tar. Walking became a shuffle, head felt so very heavy.

I don’t know if saying the stations of the cross was a good thing or not. I know saying them was hard, very very hard.