Saturday, March 19, 2011

Stations of the Cross in the Company of Clowns

I know what you were thinking, and NO, this isn't about Stations of the Cross at 66 Brooks Drive.

It's a real Stations of the Cross with clowns in the Diocese of Albany.

Here's a narrative of the buffoonery and an article with a picture from a similar circus at the Crucifixion of Our Blessed Lord.

I hesitate to say this, but I do wonder why they do not do clown funerals for their dead relatives and friends. Imagine how life-changing it would be if clowns could re-enact the cancer treatments and car accidents. It would really make you see things differently if clown pallbearers could escort the casket out of the Church on teeny-tiny little bikes, wouldn't it?

Do you think they'd finally get the hostility we feel when they do it as we are mourning the death of Christ if we surprised them with a clown service at one of their funerals?

Get it?

The Commemoration and Anniversary of the Bloody Execution and the price of our salvation is not the time for clowns.

It is infuriating that people would make a circus of out these solemn and prayerful events.

Are these people who are terrified of emotions? Do they not experience a real relationship with Christ?

Somebody clue me in because I don't get how they could be so insensitive to people mourning our Savior.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

When i see things like this I find the sedavacantist position more reasonable.

Joseph D'Hippolito said...

For the life of me, I've never understood the purpose of clown Masses or any such thing. Can somebody please explain this?

Jack O'Malley said...

Joseph,

Clown masses are a form of novus ordo self-parody. They are a gift of the Holy Ghost to warn good Catholics to stay the "hell" away.

This Lent, I have rewritten the old Good Friday prayer for the Jews. Instead of "perfidious Jews" it will read "perfidious priests."

Anonymous said...

The fad for such things was set off, I believe, in the wake of the publication of Harvey Cox's book The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Festivity and Fantasy (William Belden Noble Lectures) [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 1969], whose central thesis was that the modern world has lost, and should strive to recover, something of the older sense of festivity and sacred foolishness embodied in the medieval custom of the annual Feast of Fools. Enthusiasts for the book cast about for ways to accomplish this revival and hit upon the sorts of odd practices you are wondering about.

Anonymous said...

Carol, what do you know about Bishop Hubbard?

Get yourself a copy of "Amchurch Comes Out" and go directly to the "Agony in Albany" section.

Veronica

P.S. Was the chief clown of the Diocese at the event?

Anonymous said...

My dear Carol,
As Veronica said, Hubbard is one of the 'ones' that really needs to go. Living in the Diocese of Albany is tantamount to living in England for all the Catholicism that is practiced there. We really need him gone and a "Good and Faithful" servant in his place.

Joseph D'Hippolito said...

Enthusiasts...cast about for ways to accomplish this revival and hit upon the sorts of odd practices you are wondering about.

Anonymous, I've never been to a clown Mass but from your brief description of Cox's book, it sounds like the "enthusiasts" are trying to impose something that isn't natural. Spiritual joy has to be a natural phenomenon and it has to be ignited by the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, it's nothing but play-acting.

Word verification: bromo. I'm not kidding.

Carol, is an antacid company sponsoring your blog on the sly? ;)