Our Good Friday liturgy always brings an interesting assortment of people to church. You won't see some of them in church any other day of the year, but their piety is fervent on Good Friday. The rest of the year, the people are more-or-less together in the speed and meter of the prayers they recite together. On Good Friday, there are many people who recite the prayers half again as fast as the rest of us. They're not irreverent - the tone of their speech is almost like a mantra.
In the part of the liturgy where the people venerate the cross, people line up as if they were going to communion and step forward and kiss the feet of the image of Jesus on the cross. Most people do this a little shyly, but some make quite a production of it - genuflecting and crossing themselves before and after.

After the liturgy, we did the "old-style" Stations of the Cross, led by our notoriously liberal deacon and our equally notorious cantor (me). The text was written by St. Alphonsus Ligouri in the 18th century, and it's hopelessly maudlin. It goes on and on about sin and unworthiness and how horribly we have offended Jesus and caused him to die such a terrible death. As we walked along, it was interesting to see people touch or caress the statues and images we passed. After the service, small groups of people, mostly women from various ethnic groups, gathered here and there in the church and recited prayers together - again with that high-speed fervor in the tone of their voices. It's not a spirituality that I can understand, but it had a lot of meaning for a lot of people who were there. The deacon and I played it straight, and it was kind of nice to know that we could do a pretty good job leading worship in a style that was somewhat foreign to us - but we did have a good laugh after it was all over.

-Joe Offer-