Interior Catholic

  • Un-Party-like

    Easter was a whirlwind this year. It began with the Seder on Friday (more on that next week!), then hightailing it to Massachusetts for the weekend. This was the first holiday since my sister and her husband bought their first house, and there’s no better way to break it in than packing the whole family in for celebration.

    I should know by now that my well-thought plans rarely go accordingly. Arrive early on Saturday! I told myself. My sister had already looked up the local Catholic Vigil times, and 7:00 p.m. gave us plenty of time to arrive and help with holiday prep. I’d been talking up the 3-hour Vigil with my boyfriend for a week, awaiting the evening’s grand party-like celebration.

    We didn’t leave early morning as expected, though I rarely do. After a requisite pit-stop at my parents’ house, and an additional stop for brunch, and some Connecticut traffic, we didn’t arrive until 5:00. We had just enough time to unpack the car, scarf down dinner, and rush to 7:00 Mass… which was alarmingly empty. Because it didn’t really begin until 7:30.

    The Vigil was… decidedly un-party-like. They skipped half the readings. The choir sang at varying pitches and tempos. I couldn’t even see the Paschal candle, so I’m not sure when (or if) it was lit. Mass was just over 1.5 hours, though I can’t say I was disappointed. The cold rain was a fitting end.

    “I just want to go home and do it over,” I moped.

    Easter morning brought unexpected sunlight, since it was forecasted to rain. The kids hadn’t finished opening their baskets before plunging into the egg hunt. There were two different varieties of lamb in slow cookers, and potted tulips of varying colors in the kitchen. The parents arrived earlier than planned, with the lack of Sunday morning traffic. We all piled into cars for Easter service, a potential do-over at the Episcopal church. It wasn’t a do-over—it was long, and both kids and adults were getting restless—but the non-Episcopals whispered in their pew, and my niece quietly doodled in her church bulletin.

    I realized even our thwarted Saturday wasn’t completely thwarted: There had been enough time for meal prep. We hid Easter eggs after the kids had gone to sleep, scouring the new house for good hiding spots. Sunday afternoon, the women gossiped in the kitchen as the lone Jew bonded with the Chaplain over video games. We teased one another over our respective churches. (“The Catholics are boring anyway!” or “That Episcopal service was as bad as the Baptists!”)

    We didn’t wake Dad from his nap when it was time to eat, since he would drive the 4-hour ride home that evening. We piled our plates with potatoes and spiced lamb, looking across the potted tulips on the table. When Dad stirred and asked, “Is it dinner time yet?” we stifled a laugh, pretending our empty plates hadn’t yet been filled.

    Things often don’t follow even the best thought-out plans. But sometimes, it doesn’t rain all weekend. Sometimes you bond with family over the potency of (delicious) moroccan-spiced lamb, and fill in the blanks for a Jew at a mediocre church service. Honoring God is more than just a spirited Easter Vigil. It’s loving your family, and witnessing the joy of a kid who found an Easter egg jingling with quarters. It’s teaching others about Jesus, and respecting and learning from one another, too.

    So, happy Easter!
    (Though maybe next year we’ll have that Vigil party.)

  • Notre-Dame de Paris

    Only vaguely do I remember my time there. It had been a long, two-week trip. We’d seen a lot of countries, and a lot of churches. Basilicas, they were called, though I didn’t know the difference between that and a cathedral and a regular ol’ church. But we stepped into the French basilica, and I knew it was different.

    I traveled in the tour group with my friend, Amanda. She was openly atheist, but seemed to know the rules in a church. She crossed herself with holy water, and yelled at me when I didn’t do the same. (“I don’t do those things!” I’d written in my travel journal.) I knelt with her in the pews (that, at least, seemed acceptable). I didn’t understand these rituals, but she respected a house of God, so I respected her.

    I don’t have a lot of photos from Notre-Dame. I was a budding amateur photographer, and many of my vacation photos ended up dark or blurry. But the memory of Amanda kneeling in the pew, and the spiritual quiet of the basilica, is better than any photos.

    Tragedy doesn’t hit me right away. When I saw news of the fire, it didn’t register. It was sad, in the way any fire is sad. But as the day progressed there were more and more reports, and photos from every angle. Later, when they began celebrating the saving of relics and stained glass, the severity began to sink in. I finally understood that this ancient, holy basilica had burned, and I mourned.

    But in its eight-hundred-year history, this is not its first tragedy. There are countless stories of countless churches that have been demolished, burned, and rebuilt. When I visited Israel, I stood in the ruins of a 4th-century synagogue, which stood upon the foundation of a 1st-century synagogue. We marvel over the most recent (1,800-year-old) structure, but before that, it was something entirely different—something that had come down, for one reason or another, and was reconstructed.

    So, yes, our initial reaction is to mourn the loss of beauty, the loss of history. But it hasn’t been lost. This is a part of its history, and we’ll witness its next life. No, it won’t be the same, but things seldom are. Like its reconstruction from the original Gothic into the Renaissance, to its subsequent plunderings and bullet-hole scars from wars, this is merely a passage. And, sometime in the future, it will experience change again.

    I won’t forget those moments spent in prayer at Notre-Dame. The old Notre-Dame, now. Perhaps one day I’ll visit again, marvel at its reconstruction, and catch hints of its—and my—old life.

And they said to him, “Inquire of God, we pray thee, that we may know whether the journey on which we are setting out will succeed.”

And the priest said to them, “Go in peace. The journey on which you go is under the eye of the LORD.”

—Judges 18:5–6

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