Snapshots of Holy Week

The Liturgical week is off to a clanging start. My loud noise at Tenebrae could, at most, be described as “adequate”. Think of those as scare quotes. I couldn’t get all my metal pans to fall down the stairs in a cascade. It turned out to be a sort of a dull thud. Most disappointing. Also, new candelabras meant an increased number of candles, which meant laboriously reconfiguring my detailed instructions to myself on how to put them out, only to have Matt, at the last moment, remove my bulletin and hide it, I assume for entirely nefarious reasons and not out of absent mindedness. Sat with my Snuffer and an old bulletin and tried to reconstruct the whole thing in silent agony. Like Jesus, really, who also suffered a great deal.

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This Holy Week has already been revolutionarily in the history of Holy Weeks because of our clinging faithfully to luncheon. Why, oh why, didn’t we think of this ten years ago? Eating properly, at least once a day, turns out to be strangely strengthening, both in mind and body. And sitting down to do it, after working desperately all morning, is, well, it seems sort of civilized. I know standing sadly and angrily at the kitchen counter trying to pick through the remains of a child’s peanut butter and Nutella sandwich is what the dream of motherhood is all about, so who could have thought that there was another way?

Also, I don’t know, Matt must be really stressed because he’s made a cake or a pie every day for the last week. He’s never baked anything before maybe three weeks ago, when we realized that, for Americans, the Great British Bake Off is over for a while, and we’re not allowed to have it any more. In a fit of mourning he started making samosas and creme anglaise and cake. This is lovely, of course, if not remotely penitential. But also upsetting to me because I haven’t budgeted into my life sitting down every afternoon to a large wedge of cake. And, after years and years of Matt studiously avoiding all my pies, because, he says, “it’s not in my diet” I resent the double standard that somehow I am “not allowed” to refuse cake, because he “needs to know how it tastes” and “doesn’t trust the children” to tell him. Virtually waddled through Tenebrae last night.

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Of course, we do have a sick child, of a sickness that will certainly overtake some other children, and possibly even ourselves, before the week is over. Praying desperately that we make it through till Sunday still standing, and only collapse on Monday morning. The well children are all cautious and angry. This is the best week of the year, the week when you don’t want to miss anything. The threat of everything going terribly wrong is hanging over us all like a pretty bleak storm cloud.

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On the other hand, knowing that there would probably be a need for some quiet consolation, I happened to put by Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women from the library in advance of this week. I should probably have searched around for some kind of Spiritual Reading, or even something new. But I’m not God, am I, to read a new book or a holy book in a week like this. And Excellent Women is all about church, so, well, anyway. There it is. Probably the single greatest tragedy of my life is that I am not Barbara Pym and didn’t write Excellent Women myself. I haven’t even written any novel. I just keep spinning on and on about the bible with bits and pieces of Lena Dunham and Donald Trump mushed in. Gosh I’m depressed now.

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So tonight there is more church. But first I’m hauling Gladys down the parkway to some sort of acrobatic clinic, where she will hopefully get rid of a lot of energy. And then I will vigorously scrub and disinfect the house in the hopes of more people not getting sick. And for luncheon I’m going to do a nice pork-chop (for our Lord, of course) with some mushrooms and white wine.

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It’s hard to be truly sad in a week like this. Frankly, every year, I am buoyed along by a faint sense of euphoria. Because, really, all the irritations and difficulties of life are nothing, nothing at all, when seen in light of Jesus’ great and perfect work on the cross. When I look at his forsakenness, his suffering, his steadfastness, I can only feel ridiculously happy because, in my darkest moments, I have never been abandoned by God, I have never suffered like he suffered, I have never had to endure as he endured. He did it for me, so I don’t have to. “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me” are not words that I will ever truly need. I am so grateful about this. I am so relieved. Tomorrow, when we cover the crosses with black and the alter lies there bare and plain, I will have to run around the block for joy. Imagine, Not having to die because someone, a perfect someone, did if for you, and then rose again. This beats Christmas every day of the year.

A blessed Maundy Thursday to you all.