Ah, a day to not use power tools, a day to contemplate. A day that so takes me over. A day that is a different day each year, that flits through our calendar like a summer butterfly. A day that affected me as a kid. A day as an adult where I cried in the middle of the service at a church that I was at for the first time. It’s always a spring day but it doesn’t feel like spring ever, sometimes. But ever a day to be caught up in a big cosmic drama. A day, just a day.
Yesterday, Father Marc washed my feet and today he will hold the cross for me to kiss. A tear now, today. It runs down my cheek now, today. A bird in the daylight, outside my window gathers up the perfect piece of debris to be an important part of her nest. Does she know about this day?
Or is most of it unsaid today? Is it some sort of under lying hum that loops up into my consciousness on a day where I am paying special attention? Days can go on for a long time without me paying this special attention, can’t they? A day perhaps with more questions than answers.
Mayday, mayday, mayday! Doris Day, doomsday, worst day, business day, laundry day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Boxing Day, Doubleday, The Longest Day, Judgement Day, birthday, hump day, Sabbath Day, all day long, night and day, the Day of Reckoning, payday, heyday, yes but, ah ah ah, all of that too, but but, this is, ah ah, something different today.
The sun is out, right now, today. Underlying love, Felipe,
Good Day, Good Friday, Good Pilgrim Farmer Felipe,
You used the line “a day that got to me as a kid”. That hit a memory nerve with me, too. A huge, gorgeous, old St. Patrick’s Church in my home town, Melrose (still and always Iowa’s Little Ireland) is the setting for that burned-in memory. Fr J.J. Morrissey presiding, still the most devout priest in my long list of pastors who cared for the flocks I have been part of. I’m not sure of my age, but it was young enough to be totally aware of and a little fearful of the stark change in the normally festive and beautifully decorated sanctuary dedicated to the Patron Saint of our ancestral home. The austerity and the sadness of the Good Friday service, so severe that songs may not even be sung. I was tasked to read the narrator part of the Passion Gospel. This was a “first”, not only for me, but for our little church. I was so touched with the sadness when it was me proclaiming it. I thought I should be shaking, but I was wasn’t. And the devout Father, reminding us, as always, that there can be no Glorious Easter without the pain and sadness of Good Friday.
Yep, part of my memory DNA now, and for always.
Family nearly all gathered up here now, we’ll be heading off in platoons for Good Friday services here at St. Joseph’s.
Good Day, Good Friday, Good Memories
SF,
PFJ
Juan ~ yes, tremendous sadness can come over one. I didn’t get any relief till Mass in the evening. Catherine was driving us home and I was trying to explain how much better I felt but I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. And she filled in the word “complete” to my “I feel…”. Yes, that’s it.
Hey, next month in Iowa right? These festivals are stacking up like cordwood, glad we got plans going for Dubuque early. Chill the brewskis, Felipe.