Categories: uncategorized
Date: 07 April 2007 17:41:16
Remember what I wrote yesterday?
After watching Thursday's Boston Legal last night, while FW was making us a cuppa, I started flicking through the channels to see what was on afterwards. I saw a programme advertised on Discovery that looked interesting, Crucify Me. I must have missed this when it was screened on Channel 5 last year.
It followed the DJ, former computer games TV host and Daily Star (a very downmarket UK tabloid) columnist, Dominik Diamond as he began a pilgrimage to reclaim his Catholic faith. He'd been a very strong Christian throughout his youth but as he got older he began to lose his faith. He felt that God was no longer with him as he tried to cope with a career and family.
He suffered from insomnia, stress and worked 20 out of 24 hours. He even failed to find time for his family and never seemed to have time for his children. At night he'd pray to God for sleep but it never came. He became more and more focused on work at the expense of everything else. He saw work as the only way to satisy the needs of his family.
He decided that he'd travel to Jerusalem, spend 3 days in a Jesuit retreat in the Phillipines and then visit the Crucifixion Rites in Pampogna, in the Phillipines, where he'd be nailed to a cross. He thought that this would be the way to renew his faith.
Jersusalem saw him visit the Garden of Gethsemane, the Via Dalorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, supposedly the scene of Christ's crucifixion and tomb. Here he began to find his faith again. Praying at the traditional place of Christ's tomb, with all the other pilgrims, seemed to rekindle the light that had dimmed.
On his 3 day retreat he had to be silent, something that is nay on impossible for him to do. He prayed and meditated and then wrote down the sins that he'd never confessed; as he'd never been to confession then this was a lifetimes worth. At the end of the 3 days his faith was right back. He'd realised how he'd used people throughout his life and then thrown them away. He realised that he never actually took time to calm himself and relax. To allow quality time for his family and God. Seeing him talk on a mobile phone to his 7 year old daughter and, in tears, ask her to forgiven him for all the times he'd denied her attention was a moving experience.
Then came the final part. The visit to the Pampogna Crucifixion. He was a guest of a guy who'd be crucified every year for 20 years in order to celebrate and renew his faith. This was something that is alien to us and somehow masochistic in our eyes. Who really believes that doing this is a valid way of renewing your faith? Yet I began to see why someone would do this. I wouldn't do it personally but undertsand the need of others to. You began to hope that Diamond would see sense; that he would see that God does not require this from him. He'd already found God again through the retreat. Surely God wouldn't require this as well.
As preparations began he found that the media had siezed solely on this part of his quest and was blowing this out of proportion. Whatever happened they would use this as a way of belittling everything that he'd done. They'd use it to poke fun at this weird Christian ritual and see it as a means of ridiculing his faith.
The villagers had allowed him to take part in the Passion celebrations. Normally only the person acting as Christus is allowed to carry his cross through the village. All the other people who would be crucified would just follow behind. However Diamond was given the privilege of following behind with a cross of his own.
He had already been having doubts of the need to actually be crucified himself. The peace and renewal he'd felt after the retreat seemed to have provided enough for him. Would he really need to go through with this? The world's media were there and a crowd of 15,000 people had come to watch the rites.
Upon arriving at the mound he found that he was still divided. He understood the privilege that he'd been given and didn't want to let down the villagers or the person who'd been Christus and crucified before him. However when the time came he decided not to go ahead. He tried to explain to the villagers that the experience would be twisted by the media at home and used to ridicule everything that he'd done in previously. He'd be castigated as a publicity seeking nutcase.
The crowd booed when they realised what he'd decided. You got the feeling that they were more interested in the suffering of those crucified than the exhibition of faith that they wanted it to be.
On the whole I gained a greater respect for Mr Diamond. I felt really happy that he'd renewed his faith, come to terms with his life and taken a stand to prevent his efforts being mocked further.
See FW's wiblog at shortly for a shocking announcement. Just to ease your minds it does not invlove births, marriages, illness or deaths.