The Tarnishing of Ash Wednesday

I'm what I would like to call a semi-practicing Catholic. My adherence to parts of the faith goes up and down like a rollercoaster. I would definitely qualify my current state as being in a lull. I barely give my faith a second thought as of late. I think it's because my parents are so very staunchly Catholic. I think it's because my mother is a nun and she's driving me crazy. [Editor's Note: If you can hold on, I promise I will blog about this in the future since it's such a lengthy explanation that I cannot do it justice as a side mention in this post.]

As a reaction to their pious nagging, I've chosen to go the "I'm ignoring you and your church-imposed rules" route. Parents: If you want your children (regardless of age) to do something, harassing them constantly will only force them into outright defying you. Opt instead for the reverse psychology method. I swear, it works.

Anyhow, today is Ash Wednesday. I normally expect a lecture or admonishment regarding how important it is to go to mass on a day like today. I got it in an offhand comment as I walked out of the house this morning on the way to work. The surprising part was the fact that my mother, aka Sister Mommy, was insisting that I also go to the movies today. "What? You want me to go watch a movie as part of my Catholic observance for Ash Wednesday?" I was dumbfounded.

Apparently, our entire flock has been encouraged to go to mass AND go see Mel Gibson's film "The Passion". As much as I love any excuse to go watch a film, I am disgusted by the church involving itself in the box office machine. Is it just me, but shouldn't a day of religious observance be just that, and nothing else? My mother was very keen on helping "The Passion" win the box office ranking for this weekend. Again, I was incredulous. My mother has never cared about box office receipts. Why should she start now? And what does it mean anyway? It is not like Christians win an extra 3 points against the Non-Christians in the Doctrine Bowl! Huzzah. Let's do the Wave.

Well, I plan on seeing the film, but not because it's my religious obligation. I highly doubt God is frowning down on me right now because I didn't support his favoured son, Mel. (Nix that. Second favourite son. My bad, Jesus!) In the meantime, my mother and her fellow blind followers feel happily smug about spending $14 CDN towards a Hollywood picture that purportedly preaches our faith to the world.

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If any of you attempted to access my website between 8pm and 9:30pm EST, you would have received a "page not found" error. When I discovered the error page, I had a major heart attack. It felt like a part of me had died. I guess it's official. I've become attached, no, dependent, no, obsessed with my blog. So I desperately wrote to my host provider (it rhymes with "noteasy") to find out what the dealio was. Turns out they were attempting some urgent maintenance on my server, and failed to notify their users of the system status. I wasn't too impressed with the lack of communication but everything is back to normal, so no worries.

Maybe, just maybe, it was a sign that God wants me to give up blogging for Lent??? Let's hope not.