The empty tomb

When my mom was a little girl, her family had a tradition: every Good Friday in the afternoon, they would go out and walk from church to church throughout Nanticoke. It wasn't to see how they were decorated for Easter. After the conclusion of Good Friday services the altar is stripped, a crucifix is placed out for veneration, and a statue of the body of Christ laid in the tomb is put on display. Each church has an air of devastation, in keeping with the nature of the holy day.

One by one the Roman Catholic churches of Nanticoke have been closing. St. Joseph's is shuttered, its windows cut out and sold, the remaining building falling into disrepair. St. Francis was torn down. Holy Child has been repurposed. St. Stanislaus is now a cultural center. Holy Trinity is now the main site for the consolidated St. Faustina parish, while St. Mary's has been kept as a "secondary site" - though now that a shortage of priests has reduced activity there to a single Mass each week, it seems likely that the church I grew up in, and my mother and grandmother grew up in, will soon be closed.

Every trip there could be the last. Every holiday could be the last.

Today is Good Friday. My mom only wanted to visit the "secondary site" today. Her old church.

We got there a little before 7:00 tonight. I was able to park right out front. Upon entering the church we realized this was because no one else was there, except for a single person praying in the back.

We went through the rituals, the veneration of the cross and so forth. Then I went to see the thing I had brought my camera for: the statue of the body in the tomb.

I was disappointed.

 

Oh, it's a nice statue, don't get me wrong. About 2/3 life size. It's just that it's not the one that I remember from my days as an altar boy, and isn't capable of the thing that made that statue so memorable.



This is a single integrated piece of statuary. The body, the cloth, and the tomb are all a single statue. Most importantly, the body cannot be removed from the tomb.



The statue I remember from back when I was in grade school was larger, about life-sized. It was a statue of the body only. The tomb and the cloth on which the body made were separate, and the cloth was actual cloth.



The body would lay there. Good Friday, Holy Saturday, the statue representing the dead body of the crucified Christ would lay in the tomb. And then, come Easter Sunday morning, it would be gone.



Not the whole display, mind you. Just the body. The empty tomb would remain on display for Easter Sunday. I found this to be a striking image neatly reflecting Gospel stories of the discovery of the empty tomb.

With a single, unified statue, this isn't possible. The statue is either there, or it isn't. And come Easter Sunday, I expect that this statue will simply be gone.

How long until the rest of the church formerly know as St. Mary's will follow suit?