Good Friday

A rainy Good Friday looms over portions of Northern Luzon and Mindanao as two weather disturbances continue to threaten the regions with rains and thunderstorms. In its 5 p.m. bulletin, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said a diffused tail end of a cold front continues to affect the northern portion of Luzon, while an easterly wave continues to affect Mindanao.

We do celebrate Easter in a secular fashion, with eggs, chocolate rabbits and so on, but the time for that is Easter Sunday, which comes with its own public holiday the following day. "Celebrating" Good Friday would be inappropriate in religious as well as secular terms -- although that didn't stop The Australian last year headlining a Good Friday report with "Aussie Christians celebrate Easter". Theology is not our strong point.

Each year, religious figures find something to criticise as "desecration" of the day. This year it was Tabcorp opening for business; a couple of years ago it was a plan to play an evening football game. But what's remarkable is how little of this sort of thing there is. Other public holidays -- Australia Day, Queen's Birthday, Labour Day, even Anzac Day -- seem to cope with far more social activity than Good Friday.

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday, marking Jesus’s Last Supper, which was actually a seder because yes, Jesus was Jewish. I have been searching for stories about Latino seders or Latino synagogues in the U.S. so please if you are a Jewish Latino share your a pedacito of your vida with us. In the meantime, I’ve actually been going to church lately (God help us all, really) and am really interested in seeing how the church in my hood does Holy Week.

Passover started yesterday at sundown and marks the start many holy high holidays in at least two faiths. Passover remembers the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Yesterday afternoon I asked a child I work with what Passover was, her four year old response was: “When Jewish people eat crackers”. I’m assuming she meant matzos aka unleavened bread symbolizing the haste in which the Jewish people had to leave.

Cardinal Edward Egan will celebrate a Holy Thursday Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. He also will preach on Good Friday and conduct Easter Mass. Egan, who's 77, was released from a hospital Tuesday after suffering stomach pains. He is expected to eventually receive a pacemaker. His hospitalization forced him to miss Palm Sunday services at the cathedral for the first time in his nine years as head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.