On Palm Sunday, we process into church waving blessed fronds. The priest walks amongst us, bearing the crucifix. We’re recreating a scene that has the power of a cruel joke: Our Lord, greatly feted by his people, riding to his kingship on a borrowed ass. And Jesus knows, as we know, waving our palms like spears, that this kingship means torture and death. The victory march is a death march, victory and death braided as intricately as the little girl... Read more
“You had no stones to throw You came without an ax to grind You did not tow the party line No wonder sight came to the blind You had no stones to throw You rode an ass’s foal They spread their coats and cut down palms For You and Your donkey to walk upon But the world won’t find what it thinks it wants On the back of an ass’s foal So I guess You had to get sold ‘Cause... Read more
In case you live more in your own little bubble than I do, there has been a good deal of controversy around the character of LeFou in Disney’s reboot of Beauty and the Beast. Yes, THERE IS A SUPPORTING CHARACTER WHO MAY OR MAY NOT BE GAY. Despite the fact that this shocks no one, it has caused an uproar. Franklin Graham called for a boycott of Disney. Life Petitions (of LifeSite News fame) had a petition to “tell Disney... Read more
My uncle died a few weeks before Easter last year, an uncle who lived a complicated life wrought with struggle and isolating mental illness. Given the difficult task of planning a way to commemorate his life, my mom called to ask me if I would be the one to officiate the services. Not only had I not spoken to my uncle in about two decades, but he was a paranoid alcoholic, an angry recluse who was estranged from his... Read more
“You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty.” –Flannery O’Connor It’s almost here. My freaking ride. April 1. Three little days away. My past two practice rides left me panting, worn out, after riding only two miles. The shortest course for the ride is six miles. It looms over me, taunting, like the baseball uniform in my closet... Read more
How’s Lent going for you, pilgrims? The 40 days of preparation before Easter is typically a time of somber reflection on our own mortality – you know, Catholic. Our Protestant famille likes to celebrate only the joy of the Resurrection, the empty cross. But we Catholics have Jesus’ bloody body on our crosses; we symbolically focus on what came before the Resurrection. Lent can be symbolized by the crucifix. So in this time of fasting, what small joys can we... Read more
I am easily led to anxiety in unfamiliar situations. I don’t like to do things with other people, and though I recognize the necessity in community, I’d almost always prefer to go about my day on my own, for comfort’s sake. Like most of us, I like certainty. Like most of us, I realize life isn’t very certain. While walking a labyrinth with a group of friends last week, I was brought to a place of holding this uncertainty in... Read more
Every year in my school, the classes would take a bus to a nearby banquet hall in our town of Opelousas, where we’d be able to eat some of the great food prepared for the St. Joseph’s Altar, a practice especially popular in Catholic southern Louisiana. That “altar” was really just a few tables adorned with flowers, breads, desserts, and meatless meals to commemorate the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Since the Solemnity falls during Lent most years and is not... Read more
Louisiana artist Brian Jocks will be contributing original illustrations to the Dark Devotional, Sick Pilgrim’s weekly meditations on the Mass readings. Sick Pilgrim (“a decidedly dark and offbeat, yet stubbornly hopeful blog founded by misfit Catholic writers”) is meant to be a platform for artists. As a blog, most of the artists we’ve gathered are writers, and we’ve been excited to feature so many (with more than 60 guest posts in our first year online), each with a unique voice. With the... Read more
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