I watched the Easter Sunday Mass on my computer this morning. Easter has always been a very important holiday to me. The Resurrection has always been such a powerful reaffirmation of all my values and my beliefs. It has also been my comfort. I will confess, however, that watching it onscreen and not being able to be present was no comfort at all. In fact, it hurt.
I hate the distance required to keep my children safe, but I understand it and I enforce it. Talking to them on WhatsApp or Google Chat, or whatever it is, helps, but doesn't heal the pain of separation. Being cut off from the Church (physically, that is) is a very different thing. Maybe it's because I can hear their voices. I don't know.
What is there that makes me long to kneel in a church? I am not very particular about which one, I just want to be there in person. It's the only place I stop pretending to be stronger than I am. All pretense falls away and I crawl up onto God's lap and feel His welcoming arms around me. I'm a child again, not the gray haired lady who gets to shop early at the supermarket. There are no long poetic prayers. Sometimes I don't say a thing to Him. I just sit there in the silence and let Him love me, understand me, forgive me. All the hurts of my life come with me, the deaths, the disappointments, and the fears. I also bring all the joy, all the gratitude for getting me this far, for answering some prayers "no" when He knew better, for sending me the most amazing people to guide me and love me and fascinate me and to keep me company on my journey.
I was thinking yesterday how Holy Saturday, which to me has always been a "place holder" in Holy Week, is a good analogy for what we're going through with Covid-19. We're cut off from one another, disappointed, lonely, afraid, and unsure. I wonder what it was like for Jesus. For the Apostles the dream was over. The leader was gone. I can't imagine what Jesus must have been thinking wherever He was. A tomb is a strange place to be thinking "Whew, I made it!" but He did. He finished what He came to do. And when He appeared to his followers He warned them away from Him. Maybe He was still figuring it all out for Himself and needed some space. The original social distancing.
When we emerge from our "tombs" I think it will take us a while to think about how to handle it. We will look at things with new eyes. We will care about different things. Hugs will be more important than they have seemed in years. For a while every shared meal with a friend will feel like a sacrament. We'll get jaded again, of course. That's what humans do. But there will be a transitional time similar to when a blind person sees for the first time. Or when a person with profound hearing loss gets a cochlear implant and can hear, and feel part of the world again. They are aware of the miracle that is life.
Meanwhile, we wait in the tomb for a while longer, pondering the big questions. This stage will end, too. I will take for granted the joy of sitting in the second row, aisle seat. But not for a long time.
Happy Easter. He is still risen. And He is still here with us. Alleluia.
I hate the distance required to keep my children safe, but I understand it and I enforce it. Talking to them on WhatsApp or Google Chat, or whatever it is, helps, but doesn't heal the pain of separation. Being cut off from the Church (physically, that is) is a very different thing. Maybe it's because I can hear their voices. I don't know.
What is there that makes me long to kneel in a church? I am not very particular about which one, I just want to be there in person. It's the only place I stop pretending to be stronger than I am. All pretense falls away and I crawl up onto God's lap and feel His welcoming arms around me. I'm a child again, not the gray haired lady who gets to shop early at the supermarket. There are no long poetic prayers. Sometimes I don't say a thing to Him. I just sit there in the silence and let Him love me, understand me, forgive me. All the hurts of my life come with me, the deaths, the disappointments, and the fears. I also bring all the joy, all the gratitude for getting me this far, for answering some prayers "no" when He knew better, for sending me the most amazing people to guide me and love me and fascinate me and to keep me company on my journey.
I was thinking yesterday how Holy Saturday, which to me has always been a "place holder" in Holy Week, is a good analogy for what we're going through with Covid-19. We're cut off from one another, disappointed, lonely, afraid, and unsure. I wonder what it was like for Jesus. For the Apostles the dream was over. The leader was gone. I can't imagine what Jesus must have been thinking wherever He was. A tomb is a strange place to be thinking "Whew, I made it!" but He did. He finished what He came to do. And when He appeared to his followers He warned them away from Him. Maybe He was still figuring it all out for Himself and needed some space. The original social distancing.
When we emerge from our "tombs" I think it will take us a while to think about how to handle it. We will look at things with new eyes. We will care about different things. Hugs will be more important than they have seemed in years. For a while every shared meal with a friend will feel like a sacrament. We'll get jaded again, of course. That's what humans do. But there will be a transitional time similar to when a blind person sees for the first time. Or when a person with profound hearing loss gets a cochlear implant and can hear, and feel part of the world again. They are aware of the miracle that is life.
Meanwhile, we wait in the tomb for a while longer, pondering the big questions. This stage will end, too. I will take for granted the joy of sitting in the second row, aisle seat. But not for a long time.
Happy Easter. He is still risen. And He is still here with us. Alleluia.
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