However, my level of involvement is not the main reason I can barely peel a purple egg on Easter. I find the liturgies and services themselves emotionally taxing, starting with Saturday night's vigil mass for Palm Sunday. At a Catholic celebration for Palm Sunday, the entire passion narrative is read dramatically, involving several actors and the priest, who always gets the part of Jesus despite having the tone and inflection of Roseanne Barr at a baseball game. It ain't Broadway. It ain't even off-off-off-off-off-off Broadway, which is, I believe, somewhere near Pittsburgh.
There are always moments of unintended humor during this reading. My favorite is when the congregation, playing the part of the angry mob before Pilate, drones "crucify him" with the energy and enthusiasm of heavily medicated insomniacs. It takes a good 15 or 20 minutes for the entire story, from Jesus on the donkey to Jesus in the tomb. If I were directing the production (watch me turn into C. B. Demille), I'd hold open auditions and find parishioners who had some acting chops. I'm not looking for Streep or Deniro, but when you're portraying a person who's bleeding to deathon a cross, I expect to hear a little discomfort, maybe even some pain. However, the idea of me saying to my parish priest "Can you try that again, with more feeling?" makes me a little uncomfortable, the way going to confession or eating tuna does. Besides, I know how volunteering at churches goes. If I said I'd like to direct the reading of the passion, I'd be king of Palm Sunday, minus the jackass, from now until death. So, I keep my mouth shut and suffer, which I count as part of my Easter penance.
It's not all bad acting, though. There is always a point during a Palm Sunday passion that gives me pause, every time it happens. Near the end of the reading, the narrator says, "Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.'" Then the narrator, depending on the translation of the gospel being used, says something like, "Jesus took his last breath and died."
At that moment, everyone in the church falls silent and kneels. The pause usually lasts around 30 seconds. Those 30 seconds, for me, are worth the price of admission. It's always solemn. It's always reverent. And it always fills me with a deep melancholy and gratitude.
Now, I'm not going to get all Billy Graham on you, but, to me, that moment where we concentrate on such sacrifice is loaded with meaning. During those moments, I think of sacrifices people have made for me: my father working from sun-up to sun-down to feed and clothe and house nine kids; my older sister buying me a new car when I graduated from college and moved downstate; my pastor friend holding my sobbing self for two hours the night my wife told me she was leaving; my daughter letting me crawl into bed with her night after night when my wife moved out, somehow sensing in her five-year-old head that I needed her nearness to anchor me. I think of my son's one-year-old fingers curled around my thumb in the darkness of his crib, trusting me to warm his home; fill his belly; protect his tiny, peach life from bruises and wounds. So much of what we do, or should do, every day of our lives is about sacrifice.
The saint for Palm Sunday knew about sacrifice. Proterius, a 5th century bishop, became Patriarch of Alexandria in 451 during a time of great religious upheaval. He stuck to his guns, of course, in the face of rioting mobs who wanted him to renounce his beliefs and doctrines. Eventually, he fled to a church for safety in 454. Proterius was stabbed to death inside that church. Sacrifice.
I know I am who I am today because of the sacrifices people have made for me. It's humbling to think that the sacrifices I make, or don't make, for my daughter and son will mold them into the woman and man they will eventually become. That's why Holy Week drains my energy so much. It's not the music or choir practices or worship services or masses. It's not the candles and incense and holy water. It's not the baptisms and first communions and confirmations. It's about sacrifices that shape our lives, make us who we are.
It's about 30 seconds of silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment