I have to say that, for me, Lent was always the worst. Admittedly, it wasn’t until I hit my late teens that I began to realize just how decadently gothic, how intricately laced with a mix of melodrama and melancholy, the whole Catholicism thing actually was, but lent was still the worst. Or at least, it was in my parish. In the town where I was brought up and, in the church where I spent my Sundays, Catholicism was about as gothic as gothic could be. Especially during lent.
During lent, I would go to church almost every night. All those dim, candle-lit evenings, swirling with shadows and redolent with history, ritual and tradition. The golds and reds of ornamental splendor and all those stone-skinned Saints with their alabaster features and fixed marble stares, glaring down in silent judgment. I remember the smell of the dark mahogany wood, austere pews, polished smooth by centuries of touch, yet still giving off that sense of detached solidity, as if no matter how often you bent to their hard, uncomfortable kneelers, you would somehow never be worthy.
Then there were the colors. Straight from the gothic palate, everything splashed with the richest of ruby crimsons, the most lustrous gold, and the creamy off-white pallor of the lately and newly dead. But still, lent was always worst...
I have to say that, for me, Lent was always the worst. Admittedly, it wasn’t until I hit my late teens that I began to realize just how decadently gothic, how intricately laced with a mix of melodrama and melancholy, the whole Catholicism thing actually was, but lent was still the worst. Or at least, it was in my parish. In the town where I was brought up and, in the church where I spent my Sundays, Catholicism was about as gothic as gothic could be. Especially during lent.
During lent, I would go to church almost every night. All those dim, candle-lit evenings, swirling with shadows and redolent with history, ritual and tradition. The golds and reds of ornamental splendor and all those stone-skinned Saints with their alabaster features and fixed marble stares, glaring down in silent judgment. I remember the smell of the dark mahogany wood, austere pews, polished smooth by centuries of touch, yet still giving off that sense of detached solidity, as if no matter how often you bent to their hard, uncomfortable kneelers, you would somehow never be worthy.
Then there were the colors. Straight from the gothic palate, everything splashed with the richest of ruby crimsons, the most lustrous gold, and the creamy off-white pallor of the lately and newly dead. But still, lent was always worst...
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Portuguese
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Translation in progress.
Translated by Luciana Maia Pontes Nobre
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