Downtown at the Friendship Room, things are as bleak as ever. It was difficult getting healthy and substantial food into poor people living in a food desert in the first place; now it’s a nightmare. They are passing out plates of dinner and filling the free pantry with cans constantly. They’ve placed a cardboard box of whatever fresh produce they can manage to get next to the cupboard, and it gets picked over quickly. They beg online for someone to... Read more
I came downtown last week on Spy Wednesday, looking a bit like a spy myself with a bandanna tied over my face. Another friend from far away had sent some money for me to fill the Friendship Room’s outdoor pantry. Things are dire downtown. It’s very hard to catch a bus up to where the grocery stores are on the new quarantine schedule, and it takes an hour to walk uphill. People take their EBT cards to the Dollar Tree which... Read more
 There’s always a letdown in this Octave of Easter– or, at least, there is for me. Sometimes it even makes me cry. All this talk about Resurrection and glory, but we’re still here on the ungodly mess that is the fallen Earth. Once in awhile, at the Easter vigil when we’re all singing our Alleluias, I feel carried away to Heaven, but the rest of the Easter season can tend to feel sad. He is risen, and I’m not... Read more
 Rosie’s lively, ragtag neighbor friends, whom I’ve referred to as “corner friends” and “fireflies” and sometimes as “the Baker Street irregulars,” have a new baby. There are six half-siblings now, living with their mother, their lively grandmother and their step-grandpa in a house that I expect to collapse like an overstuffed cardboard box any minute. Grandma is being very responsible for the Baker Street Irregulars. In the times before the pandemic, they were outside tumbling around the yard from... Read more
  I woke up early, which isn’t like me. Insomnia is another symptom I struggle with. I tend to stay up til three or five, worrying, most nights. It’s hard for me to get up before ten. But this morning, I woke up at eight. I came downstairs humming Good Friday hymns. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you... Read more
Hey friends, I am very embarrassed to do this during Triduum. But quickly, before Holy Thursday liturgies begins, in between all the actualy Triduum-related content I’ll be posting all weekend, I have to write the monthly post where I remind people that Steel Magnificat (and my family) run almost entirely on tips. I try to keep these down to one a month, not just because I hate writing them. I get a very small paycheck for clicks in the United... Read more
We’ve reached the end of Lent, the beginning of Triduum. Sunday will be Easter. The world is going to be in darkness for quite a bit longer. About two thousand people will die today, of COVID, in America alone. About two thousand yesterday, and the day before. I know of some of them. My friends online are in mourning. Relatives, parents and grandparents, died in the hospital unattended except by those brave doctors and nurses who are doing all that... Read more
No one said I couldn’t go for a hike. There’s a lot that’s not allowed right now, for safety reasons. But we’re allowed to go for walks. There are trails for hiking all around Steubenville, though many of them are officially closed and not maintained by the city. Some are marked with “Keep Out” signs but the one I went on wasn’t. This one led me downhill under budding trees, among violets, may apples, fleabane, and jack-in-the-pulpit, before abruptly ending... Read more
   Hey everyone, I just wanted to update everyone on the Pezzulo family’s situation and what we’re doing as an online community going into Holy Week. First of all, I want to invite you to pray together with us on livestream on the Steel Magnificat Facebook page. I have been streaming videos, mostly the Rosary or Vespers, on Facebook, despite not having the slightest idea what I’m doing, twice a week since the COVID crisis started. I’m really... Read more
 I woke up afraid, as usual. I don’t know if any writing fully conveys the anxiety I feel. I am scared all the time. I am not so scared of dying myself, as I am of other people dying and my having to watch, helpless. I am scared of people I love dying and my not getting to say goodbye. I am terrified at the thought of all the suffering I can’t do a thing about. I am selfishly... Read more
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