Funny how there’s always a season of the year in the Christian calendar that just depresses the hell out of you. For some it’s Christmas. For most, it would be Lent.

Lent began yesterday with the celebration of Ash Wednesday, hot on the heels of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) and Carnival. Here in NTU, a record 140 people turned up during Mass at LT3, a huge jump from the regular 60 we’re used to expecting. From the looks of it, it seems I’m going to be missing Ash Wednesdays for the next three years.

I think what made this year’s Ash Wednesday surprisingly poignant was the Stations of the Cross done before Mass. Traditionally, it’s done every Friday, but because Wednesday Mass in NTU generally adopts the practices of every Mass in the week, the Stations are also done every Wednesday of Lent here.

This week, I took the part of Christ, as he “reflected” on his journey up towards Golgotha, where he was crucified. The Way of the Cross, as we know it today, is a set of fourteen stations that begins with the Jewish governor Pilate sentencing Jesus to death and ends with the body being taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb. It is a rather emotional time of meditation that normally takes about half an hour (I overshot and took 45 minutes–hopefully the others don’t hold it against me).

The Way of the Cross is undoubtedly the precedent to Mel Gibson’s upcoming work, The Passion of the Christ. However, despite a relatively complete knowledge of the brutality that Christ went through prior to death, I wonder if anything is ever going to prepare me for the images I will see the movie.