A Reflection for Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent
Find today’s readings here.
However, take care and be earnestly on your guard
not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen,
nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live,
but teach them to your children and to your children's children.
I am aware of how much like a “bro” this makes me sound, but I have little shame: Every now and then a Mass makes me want to run through a brick wall.
This is a good thing. For example, celebrating Mass at my high school years ago, the late Rudy Casals, S.J. concluded the liturgy with a rousing iteration of the usual sendoff: “Go forth, and proclaim the Gospel with your life.”
Goosebumps. I remember looking around for a friend to share a glance with, a glance that would say, “Did you just hear how awesome that was?” Father Casals moved me with the seriousness of his faith, motivating me to follow suit in whatever way I could, even if it meant running through a brick wall.
A similar feeling came over me the other week when our office was afforded the privilege of a field trip, a mini-pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to celebrate the Jubilee Year of Hope. After visiting the cathedral’s Jubilee shrine, with its towering painting of the image of the Divine Mercy, we celebrated Mass in the Lady Chapel to the rear of the main altar.
I had never been in that back room of our city’s cathedral before. The path to its altar is short, only eight pews deep, but the vaulted ceiling pulls your eyes upward. Light from Madison Avenue paints the stone walls blue through impossibly complex stained glass. When our Mass had ended, I turned to my colleague and friend, Jackson, and mouthed the words “Brick. Wall.” He knew what I meant.
What was so exciting about this Mass for me, in addition to its obvious beauty, was that it gave me hope for a bit of writer’s block around this reflection. Moses’ words in today’s passage from Deuteronomy had caught me by surprise earlier with how they stuck around in my mind, “However, take care and be earnestly on your guard not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen… teach them to your children and to your children's children.” I had nothing to say in response to them. I’ve barely made it out of college! I don’t have kids! Why can’t I get the rhythm of these words out of my head?
The passage’s concerns of retaining heritage and passing on spiritual knowledge from generation to generation (especially that of hope in this Jubilee!) were brought to life for me during our Mass at St. Patrick’s.
Sam Sawyer, S.J., our president, editor in chief, and celebrant for the day, joked before the Collect that the Lady Chapel was a bit more grand than the small, modest chapel in our office where our masses are normally celebrated.
Still, the transcendent qualities of the space we were in felt entirely tied to the plain features of our chapel back at the office. I think that is because our moment at St. Patrick’s, as a celebration marking the special occasion of a holy year for “pilgrims of hope”, was also a reminder of the everyday duties that come with having hope. You and I are pilgrims of hope every morning we get out of bed, every time we tell someone we love them and every time we turn to prayer. Moses’ warning can be one of hope, too. We ought to take care and be earnestly on our guard not to forget that we are all pilgrims of hope, so that we might share in that hope.
In the Lady Chapel, after receiving Communion, I was kneeling in the front row while America employees, as well as tourists lucky enough to catch the non-publicized Mass, returned to their seats after receiving Communion. With my head down, everyone’s footsteps became part of the rhythm of my prayer.
A family disrupted that for a moment. First, their father received Communion. Then two young daughters followed and approached Father Sawyer for blessings, the smaller of the two more confused about the whole thing than the other. Their mother went after them, receiving the host while ushering her children onward. Right in front of our row, the youngest daughter stopped in her tracks, frustrated by her mother guiding her along. She looked up, pointed at her mother’s hands that had just held the Eucharist, and whined, “But I want one!”
One day she will get “one.” Soon, that family will pass down their lessons and their hopes, and perhaps a story about that Mass, to their children and their children’s children. They even managed to share a lesson right then and there with those of us smiling at the scene in the front pew—that we all, quite seriously, have always wanted to be pilgrims of hope, trusting always in God’s graces.
