Yeah, I feel as if I should write something appropriate to the liturgical season, though unlike many of my fellow bloggers here, it’s not really my skill set. Instead, a few bits and pieces.
Yesterday being Holy Thursday/Maundy Thursday, I’ll admit that the footwashing ritual doesn’t do anything for me. (Side note: I find it ironic that the Catholic name is “Holy Thursday” and the Lutheran/Protestant term is Maundy Thursday; the latter comes from the footwashing rite but, growing up, the Lutherans I new never had this element in the service at all.) I know that some people find this very moving, but: is the point of the rite that of having one’s feet washed, or washing someone else’s feet? And if we’re an observer, in whose place are we to put ourselves? Logically, it ought to be that we think of ourselves as being commanded by Christ to follow his example and wash others’ feet, that is, as a metaphor for serving others, but it seems as if, in practice, the emphasis becomes that of being the one having one’s feet washed. In any case, I was a bit bored. Add onto this the fact that I accompanied my husband to his (Lutheran) church, and I felt that I had missed out, liturgically, when we got home.
So, when we got home, I decided to tack on a bit of a bonus liturgy by checking out the remaining portion of the Catholic liturgy (we live half a block from church), and my middle son, the 6th grader, said he wanted to come with me (where we had left the kids at home for the prior service). Now, it had been a while since I had been at a Holy Thursday service, and my expectation was a simple procession of the Eucharist followed by the Stripping of the Altar, but they did it a bit differently: after the procession to the adjacent “donut room” of the priests and altar servers, the entire congregation followed, pew by pew, while singing the Pange Lingua, while, simultaneously, the church was darkened bit by bit and the altar was being stripped, though I didn’t notice it at the time, what with everyone in front of us (we were in the back, of course, as late arrivals) getting up and with trying to sing until it got too dark. Afterwards, the choir sang another song, and then people gradually dispersed, and we were able to make it into the donut-room/adoration chapel.
Now, the whole issue with my parents has been weighing on me since our return from there last Sunday (more on this later), so I did spend some time praying about this, though I pretty much expected that my son would move from being ready to leave to being impatient in pretty short order, but — he found a spot to kneel and settled in, and I actually had to tell him, “we can leave whenever you want to” and he still wanted to stay. And when he was ready to leave, and we went through the church — suddenly he was back in a pew, kneeling again, the stripped altar and sanctuary having really made a strong impression on him.
So — just like I sometimes feel like I vicariously eat my veggies when he enthusiastically munches on carrots, I felt a bit like I was vicariously praying. Crazy, huh?
In the meantime, of course, I’d been writing on this whole Indiana religious freedom issue, and becoming increasingly frustrated with it. (Yes, I started off saying I wasn’t going to write about it, but the more I read, the less I was able to hold to my intention not to write if I didn’t have something useful to contribute.) There’s a new piece in The Atlantic today, “Should Mom-and-Pops That Forgo Gay Weddings Be Destroyed?” which aims to gently persuade its readers that the answer is “no,” though they don’t seem to be buying it, judging from the comments (though many of the 4,000+ comments don’t make much sense at all at this point). Perhaps, in the end, it just does no good to read articles, or comments, that proclaim that “we, the gay marriage supporters, have won the day, and, one way or the other, very soon our opponents will be the ones marginalized and in the small minority, so: payback.” After all, pundits, let alone blog commenters, aren’t legislators (though at this point, everything’s contingent on the Supreme Court). But we are in the midst of a massive and very sudden social change, when it comes to not just gay marriage but marriage in general — and the abandonment of any notion among the mainstream culture, that it has anything to do with children, but is, rather, a means of two individuals gaining social recognition of their relationship and government benefits, for an indefinite length of time. Will this, in fact, result in Catholics and other traditional sorts of Christians being marginalized, and deemed by others as not fit for polite society? Or is this being blown all out of proportion? After all: Boku Haram. ISIS. etc.
And, with these thoughts in mind, a stray comment on the radio: Eric and Kathy and the other voices on The Eric and Kathy Show talking about dressing up little girls for Easter, and one of them said, “well, you need two dresses: one for the Egg Hunt and the other for the family gathering.” And I was, honestly, rather surprised to hear “family gathering” where I expected “church.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have been. Perhaps it’s just radio-speak, a “stylebook” that says “don’t mention going to church.” But it hadn’t really occurred to me that people who don’t go to church at Easter would still celebrate with a family gathering.
And then, at church tonight,* the pews were emptier than I expected, and I started to think about this some more: it’s improbable that Christians in the U.S. would face the sort of real, all-too-serious persecution they do in all manner of other places, but all too likely that Christians will be treated as backwards, ignorant, and second-class citizens. (*Again, at the Lutheran church.)
But anyway: back to the Triduum. Last year, we attended the Good Friday service at this church and I was impressed with how liturgical it was; there was even a proper Veneration of the Cross, which I’d never seen at a Lutheran church before. Unfortunately, it must not have been well-received, because this year it was back to a Tenebrae-style service (though organized differently that usual: a sermon/”message” at the beginning, then a pattern of reading, song, prayer, candle-extinguishing for seven candles afterwards; rather than what I think of as a more typical seven short reflections). Which was fine, as far as it goes, though I missed my liturgy. When I first attended a Catholic Good Friday service, way back at Notre Dame, I thought the Veneration of the Cross was kind of creepy, but now I think it’s moving. In fact, I had half a mind to slip into the Catholic service again tonight (it started half an hour later than the Lutheran one), but I needed to call my mom to check in —
because (last item for tonight) my sister, who lives an hour away from my parents, had made an appointment for Dad with a neuropsychologist that a friend of hers spoke very highly of. Now, back in November, the neurologist my Dad was seeing since his fall had been talking about another potential treatment, but then the follow-up appointment was rescheduled multiple times, until, when my parents finally saw him again at the end of February, he had dropped this entirely and Mom, who used to be very diligent about these sorts of things, didn’t ask. And Dad’s getting worse and Mom doesn’t really have the skills to handle the situation. So they saw this doctor today, and Mom came away from the appointment feeling very encouraged, and they’re going back next Thursday for some extended testing. So on the one hand, I feel relieved that there’s hope for some progress, though at the same time, I worry that this’ll be false hope and, in particular, that my mom’ll expect that the doctor will just “fix” Dad without any effort on her part.
Now, if I were a better writer than I am, I’d probably find some way to connect worries about my parents to a Lent/Easter theme. But that’s all I’ve got for you tonight.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In