Holy Week

Palm Sunday: A few words

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The youngest rises early and is fully alive at 6:15 a.m. Perhaps he is his mother’s son. Breakfast consumed quickly, he begins his play. He shouts at objects in repeated indecipherable words. They are unknown to the untrained ear. But to us, with visual cues of context, we discern what they mean. As he shouts in repeated fashion, we echo back our confirmation that we heard.

“Truck.”
“Train.”
“Tracks”
“Brother”
“Deacon”

His attempt to name is intense and urgent. He shouts them like cannonballs hurling towards the target until affirmed that we heard and understood him.

May my prayers be the same – eyes open to the world, to that which delights my eyes and that which frustrates my heart.

May I launch it all, in few words, towards the Eternal Listener until I hear it reverberate back my way. Continue reading

HOLY SATURDAY: For today, there is Life.

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photoWhile the sun still sleeps and darkness hangs out, I gather my things. Race bib, shoes, headphones. I review the logistics in my head. Many steps stand between me and my first half-marathon.

My mind wanders to the sanctuary, where we sat last night in darkness at the end of our Tenebrae service. A service of shadows. A service of death. Black fabric still drapes the communion table and pulpit. As the birds began their day’s song, I know that the darkness sits in silence even now.

The complex theological questions of Good Friday swirl in my head (where was Jesus’ father, Joseph, while Mary wailed? Where was Jesus’ father, the Holy One, while love and sorrow flowed mingled down?). Yesterday the questions seemed important to think through. Today, they seem rhetorical. On the silence of Holy Saturday, faith is not about understanding the mystery. It is about communion with the mystery. Continue reading