Yesterday, after our glorious Easter worship service at LCG, I stopped in a c-store to fill-up on Diet Coke. And in making small talk with a clerk in there I said, "Well, I hope you're getting paid double time today!"
She looked a little perplexed. "No, we got double time for Good Friday."
Later in the afternoon I drove by a major hardware store (not Home Depot) and was surprised to notice that it was open on Easter Sunday. I was surprised because it had been closed for Good Friday when I was looking for a part for a broken chair.
Guam is 85% Roman Catholic. Could it be that in this island's particular version of Roman Catholicism Good Friday is the true climax of Lent and Easter itself is really more of an afterthought? Could it be that culturally it is easier to embrace the suffering and shame rather than the resurrection and new life? It's almost as though the glory of Easter has been overshadowed by the gory of Good Friday.
3 comments:
Brad,
This is fascinating. Is there something in Guam's past that makes them resonate more with suffering and shame?
What little I know of their history suggests that after the poor treatment and disease wrought by the Spanish and the brutality of the Japanese these are a people who are acquainted with sorrow and grief.
Also, do you know which orders were the main Catholic missionaries to Guam? Could they have possibly been Franciscan or Augustinian? In my admittedly limited experience, those two groups have had a tendency to be more extreme, and thus potentially more somber and brooding.If they were the ones to bring Christianity to the islands, then that might explain why the emphasis is on Good Friday rather than Easter.
"It's almost as though the glory of Easter has been overshadowed by the gory of Good Friday."
Or so Mel Gibson would have you believe. . .
The original missionaries to Guam were Jesuits. However, when that order fell out of favor in the 18th century the Augustinian Recollects took over the mission to Guam. They were kicked out when the Americans took control in 1898. The Spanish Capuchins (Franciscans) took over from there.
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