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Ascension Thursday

Ascension Thursday

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Today is Ascension Thursday, a liturgical marker that I often forget but maybe, because of the strange way I’m “going to church” now (which is online), I noticed.

I heard an excellent sermon on this topic last Sunday, one that talked about the way Jesus leaves his disciples before he ascends to heaven. He says “I will not leave you orphans,” explained the minister, who zeroed in the use of that word “orphan” with all the abandonment and grief it entails. She shared stories about the loss of her own parents, who died 11 months apart, in particular the passing of her father, whose death was the most difficult and yet also the most spiritual.

What the minister emphasized is that Jesus wasn’t leaving his followers without a helper. He was sending them the Paraclete, which in this case means the Holy Spirit, part of the Triune God. The word paraclete, lower case, means “advocate” or “helper.”

I like to think about this day, then, not as one of clouds and trumpets, or of loss and dismay. But rather one in which assistance is foretold, is part of the package. In Greek the word “paracletos” means “one who comes alongside.” What a lovely way to look at spiritual help.

Intentionality

Intentionality

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In the guided meditation I’ve been doing through work we’ve been exploring the idea of intentionality, of directing our practice toward others who will benefit from it, those at home or in the (now virtual) workplace.

It’s something I recall doing at a yoga class I took years ago, devoting the effort, the realizations and the calmness to a cause beyond ourselves. Back then one or two of my children were still in their teenage years, so I never had a lack of intention.

But I’ve realized today as I’ve pondered this practice (not during the meditation itself, oh no, never then; I’m not thinking about anything then!) is that it’s familiar from even longer ago. It reminds me of something I was taught in my Catholic grammar school, which was to “offer up” our daily trials for the poor souls in Purgatory.

I’m not sure Purgatory is still a thing (a place?) anymore, but the notion of directing our collective effort toward a greater good very much appeals to me. It means that there is a reservoir of good will abroad in the land that we can add to and draw from as needed.  And surely we could all benefit from that.

Spy Wednesday

Spy Wednesday

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I’d never heard of Spy Wednesday until I began reading Niall Williams lovely This is Happiness (more about this novel when I finish it), which is set in the west of Ireland in the middle of the last century.

Spy Wednesday is the day before Holy Thursday, and it’s all about … Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. “Spy” in this case means to ambush or scare and refers to the way Jesus was captured by Roman soldiers who had been tipped off about his location.

I learn from Wikipedia that Spy or Holy Wednesday services are still held, often with a Tenebrae service, in which candles are extinguished until only one remains.

In Williams’ novel, Spy Wednesday is the day when the rain finally stops in the fictional village of Faha. Much of the action revolves around this day.

The rain has stopped here, too, and the sun is shining on the downed branches and trees from last night’s wicked storm. It’s placid here for the moment. A time to learn about an old rite — and meditate on an old wrong.


(A Spy Wednesday process in Spain. Courtesy Wikipedia)

Virtual Palm Sunday

Virtual Palm Sunday

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I’ve been getting by this Lent with recorded services, special sermons and spiritual readings. But beginning today and for the next week, it will be, to say the least, quite strange.

A virtual Palm Sunday? Good Friday on the telly? And Easter with no live Mass, no big feast with ham and deviled eggs? And what of my decades-old yellow suit with the shoulder pads. I guess it will be staying in the closet this year (which, to tell the truth, is probably where it should remain).

Human beings are nothing if not adaptable, though. We’ve already begun planning Zoom family gatherings to touch base and check in. We will each make our own deviled eggs this year, our own hams and asparagus. We’ll show off our feasts and toast each other in cyberspace.

But for today, it’s the start of Holy Week and I sit in my living room scrolling through services. Do I want to live-stream from St. Patrick’s or the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception? How do I want to celebrate Palm Sunday … other than with no palms?

The Sunday Funnies

The Sunday Funnies

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The pandemic is creating many strange situations, some terrifying, some exasperating and some … unexpectedly funny. I just experienced the latter.

The humor came not from one of the many memes circulating via group text, nor from a streaming late-night comedy show but from the videotaped Mass provided by my Catholic parish.

The service was conducted with utmost respect and solemnity, but a series of little blunders left me chuckling by the end. First, the voice track of the video lost sync with the action, which made all the speakers look like they were being dubbed. Next, church bells started ringing loudly toward the end of the service, which seemed to surprise everyone on the altar.

And then there was today’s presider  — a puckish older man who brings smiles even on ordinary Sunday. When it came time for the sign of peace, Father Dick shrugged, looked around and finally settled on a jolly, window-washer-type wave. Next, he had to be reminded to alert parishioners to the food van in the parking lot today (a whispered reminder from the pastor that was transmitted to the listeners through the mic Father Dick was wearing on his vestments). And finally, he began the dismissal before giving the blessing. When he realized his mistake, he knocked on his head and said, “Well, at least some things are happening like usual around here.” It was a splendid self-deprecating  recovery that left me laughing out loud.

I’m not sure Hollywood will be calling my church anytime soon. But … maybe they should.

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

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Entertainment in a time of coronavirus: We need it, though we may be a bit reluctant to speak of it when the death numbers keep rising and the photo above the fold of today’s Washington Post is of a stack of caskets in Italy.

Nevertheless, entertainment is helping many of us make it through. The Netflix servers (if they have servers) must be groaning from the load these days. And the same for Amazon Prime and Hulu and of course all the cable news stations, especially the news and movie ones.

I began to watch a show called “Pandemic,” a Netflix documentary. It was made last year but is so spot-on in its depiction of what’s happening now that it’s worth watching for that alone. But I decided last night to try something different, and watched “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” a movie about Mr. Rogers and his relationship with a cynical journalist.

Turns out, there really was a cynical journalist. He really did write a long article about Mr. Rogers in Esquire magazine, and he and the journalist really did become friends.

Interested in how true-to-life the movie was, I read an article on its accuracy. It pointed out the differences, and also said that we don’t see enough of Mr. Rogers, that we don’t learn enough about his life. I saw the documentary about Mr. Rogers and found it boring, as I found Mr. Rogers (though my kids did not, and that’s what mattered).

But the movie’s story about Mr. Roger’s effect on others touched and inspired me. We see Mr. Rogers stooping to talk with a boy with cancer and assure him that he’s strong on the inside. We see Mr. Rogers swimming and Mr. Rogers praying for the people in his life, saying their names one by one. 

I took from it a simple truth: that there is always hope and that we must help each other. Not a bad message in a time of coronavirus.

(Photo: Screenshot of the Esquire cover from the 1998 article by Tom Junod. The film also contains a great scene of magazines being printed that I loved, being an ink-on-paper journalist at heart!) 

Trust Exercise

Trust Exercise

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It’s 24 degrees this morning as I take Copper for his early morning walk. He and I have a pre-dawn rendezvous. He wanders into the living room fully expecting me to be there, because, of course, I usually am.

It’s not important to him that I’m trying to get some writing done, or some online shopping, or that I’m checking out bathroom fixtures or insurance questions or any other of my oh-so-human preoccupations.

He wants the crisp air of winter in his nostrils, the crunch of frost-stiffened grass under his pads. He wants to trot a few houses down the block as if he owned the place, then trot those same few houses back to the sure promise of a yummy breakfast and a warm house.

His trust is pure and complete. I could learn something from it.

Appreciating Advent

Appreciating Advent

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It’s the first day of December and the first Sunday of Advent, and I’ve been trying to remember the last time we had such a tidy confluence. With Christmas on a Wednesday, that means each Advent Sunday will have its due, too.

I love Advent — the medieval-sounding hymns, the plain purple vestments, the wreaths and calendars, the air of joyful expectation.  Advent is about preparation, and I love that, too, because it reminds me that there are things worth waiting for and they are all the sweeter once they arrive.

Advent is often lost in the shuffle, folded into the Christmas season, but it has much to offer on its own. It reminds us to plan and anticipate, to watch and wonder, to read and reflect — and to do all of that secure in the knowledge that what we search for we will find, what we long for will be given to us.

Silence

Silence

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I just finished reading Jane Brox’s lovely new book Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives. Brox plumbs her topic by comparing the silence of solitary confinement with the silence of the cloister, an interesting approach that gives her a chance to examine the trials of silence as well as its gifts.

She draws often from Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk who lived much of his life in the cloistered Abbey of Gethsemani but whose writings gave him a worldwide audience. Here she quotes from Merton’s Asian Journal: “Our real journey in life is interior. It is a matter of growth, deepening, and an ever-greater surrender to the creative action of grace and love in our hearts.”

Brox notes the creative power of silence, and its necessity. She concludes with this thought:

Silence can seem like a luxury. Or the fraught world has labeled it that way. But from what I know of it, I would argue that silence is as necessary as the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, which we so carefully guard and endlessly ponder, for it affirms the meaning of speech even as it provides a path to inner life, to beauty, observation and appreciation. It presents the opportunity for a true reckoning with the self, with external obligation, and with power.

The Contemplative Life

The Contemplative Life

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Shortly before leaving the house on Saturday, I panicked about what books to bring.  I jettisoned the hefty library book, a novel scheduled for September book group. There will be plenty of time for it, and it hadn’t grabbed me yet.

I thought about packing a book I’d already read, a security blanket of sorts. But that seemed too unadventurous.

I ended up with Virgin Time: In Search of the Contemplative Life, by Patricia Hampl. It is part travelogue, part memoir and part spiritual exploration.

The contemplative life is what Hampl is after, but to get to it she takes a walking tour to Assisi, home of St. Francis.  The walking feeds the contemplation, and provides authentic moments like the one when a woman in a kerchief runs out to offer the pilgrims two bottles of her homemade wine, a gesture “a million years old, far beyond courtesy, rooted in ancient communion.”

“Walking allowed such timeless moments, making us slow-moving parts of the landscape we passed through. Maybe the world isn’t, at its daily heart, as modern as we tend to think. As we walked, it kept reverting to an ancient, abiding self.”

And it is in that “ancient, abiding self” that Hampl discovers — and perhaps all of us could find — the lives we are looking for.