Ashes and Palms

Today, I had the opportunity to lector for Palm Sunday mass.

The church, St. Malachy’s ~ The Actors’ Chapel, situated in the heart of Times Square, sandwiched rather ironically between Chicago and Book of Mormon, is fairly well attended each Sunday at 6 PM as the matinees get out and tourists stream in, accompanied by folks who live in the area (yes, there are families who live near Times Square), and parishioners like myself who come from the outer boroughs and call St. Malachy’s our spiritual home, as well as a Broadway professional or five, ducking in after the same matinee as the tourists.

The mass itself was a bit of a scramble: we’ve just instituted having two lectors at each mass, and so there’s a bit of shuffling and “Which bit do you do now?”  Add to that the solemn procession that none of us were quite prepared for, and a shortage of songbooks, and extra tourists in the pew behind us, normally reserved only for anyone serving mass…

And the teen, clearly dragged to mass, taking selfies in the front pew; and the chatty sacristan was on today, so the constant stream of whispering to one side; and the startled moment when the congregation realized they had to speak as part of the Passion, and the quiet ruffle of pages as several hundred people searched for their line…

And I was reminded of Tolkein’s quote:

“Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your Communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children—from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn…

“It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people.”

I’m often tempted to disdain an imperfect mass, to disdain “Ashes and Palms Catholics” who swell the church twice a year, to disdain a poorly read Passion, yet these are the very things that Christ welcomes.  These are the children of whom He said: “Let them come to Me.”  Of whom He said, that if anyone leads one of them astray – if I were to frown them out of mass, for example – it were better if a millstone were placed around my neck and I were thrown into the sea.

We have concluded Lent and have entered into Holy Week.  And I want to linger, at last, on the understanding that the finger is pointed at the high priests and the scribes and the elders – the proverbial older brothers in the prodigal story.  The people who called for Christ’s crucifixion were the very people safeguarding the church – even against God Himself.

And that the only people, at the end, who stayed with Him were the outcasts, the unwelcome: the hysterical woman bursting into a staid dinner to anoint His Head; a former prostitute; His unmarried mother; a teenage boy; a Roman soldier. And those who mocked Him. They were there, too.  The guilty.  They were there, too.

It’s tempting to believe that, unlike Peter, I wouldn’t have run away.  It’s tempting to think that I would have boldly stepped into the high priest’s court.  It’s more realistic to realize that I’m not even bold enough to follow as far as the high priest’s court – not out of fear, but out of Other Things To Do.  Or that, if I were in that courtyard, chances are I would have been the high priest who condemned Christ Himself, in a fit of bloodthirsty righteousness.

On Friday, we’ll read the Passion again.  It will probably be done poorly, with someone’s kid crying, and that one person who reads the congregation lines too fast, and someone else too slow, and did we remember the second collection, and why did the music director choose this song, and the in-laws are coming – do we need to get doughnuts? – and a thousand other “pious” distractions that seem to keep the sensation of holiness at bay.  That incite us to disdain the Ashes and Palms Catholics who only come to “get” something – forgetting that they have, indeed, shown up.  And they are looking for something, Someone, while we look at them and sniff and snicker and don’t look for Him at all.

And I’ll remind you of one of the few things Christ asked:

“Can you stay awake with me one hour?”

Not to stay awake well.  Not to stay awake beautifully.  With the right music, and the flourishes, and exactly this much incense, and what is that woman wearing…!  Not to dress up beautifully, call Him “Rabbi” and kiss His cheek.

Just to be there.  Really there.  With the good thief, and the bad, and with Mary and the soldiers, and the Ashes and Palms Catholics, and your own little self – and Him.

“Do this, in memory of Me.”

Image courtesy of Pixabay.