April 2020 – Spirit as Muse

A Buffalo native takes a nostalgic
Holy Thursday pilgrimage through
West Side Churches.

Beyond the somberness there was always an air of festivity. Feet shuffled, crowding bodies pushed, but with respect and forbearance. The thick atmosphere was heavy with incense, the fragrance of lilies and melting beeswax candles. Prayers whispered from the lips of black-shrouded women, their wooden beads clacking against worn pews.

From far into the sanctuary a droning litany of male voices chanted ” ... misere Domine, … libera nos Domine … ”

There, almost apologetically placed at the side of the nave, was the object of adoration on an altar gleaming in white draped satin with a sun-burst of gold at its center. Within the golden center, a white host.

It was always a mild evening, it seemed. Sometimes a light April rain lent a taste of spring. Our route was mostly through narrow traffic-filled West Side streets. Our pilgrimage covered the seven churches whose names sounded like the litanies chanted within: Our Lady of Loretto, Our Lady of Lourdes, Holy Cross, Holy Angels, St. Anthony’s, St. Michael’s, St. Louis.

Our favorites were the smaller, more crowded Italian churches: St. Anthony’s, Holy Cross, Our Lady of Loretto. Here the pilgrims were most alive and fervent. At Our Lady of Lourdes the spirit was nearly the same, but it seemed to be diluted the farther we were from the Italian neighborhood. By St. Louis’ the tone was definitely reserved — or perhaps it only seemed so because what fervor there was may have been dissipated in the largeness of the place, with its vaulted arches and Gothic character. Fewer votives, less light, made the air noticeably colder both physically and emotionally.

It was supposed to be a penitential time: the statues had been draped in purple; on Good Friday, the churches would be totally stripped of decoration.

But tonight, there was an inner comfort and satisfaction that grew with the outer fatigue of repeated genuflections. We even had a kind of thrill in dipping our fingers into the barren marble of holy water fonts that had been drained dry. We didn’t realize then that they were meant to symbolize the emptying of the old spirit, the dead ways, to prepare for the flooding of new life and energy that was to come on Sunday.

Holy Thursday was the last dazzling flash before death, silence, and the more serene, stable brilliance of Resurrection.

I find it fascinating how a potential disaster causes the birth of new experiences, new vocabulary, new phrases. Sheltering in place is one I mentioned in my last post about saint Rosalia, in her lifetime a hermit, and whose prayers are credited with saving the city of Palermo from the plague.

Social distancing is another new phrase we now hear frequently, one that is self-contradictory because the very heart of being social or sociable is being close to one another, not distant.

These quiet days I sit by my front window, watching parades of folks walking their dogs, and youngsters riding their bikes in company with a parent or two. Nor can I resist taking advantage of the warm weather. Closing in on a fellow walker, we laugh as we pass each other and ask, “Do you think there’s six feet between us?”

These are good days for becoming aware and thankful for what really matters. Youngsters are continuing their studies at home, maybe even speaking now and then with their parents. Getting a hamburger via McDonald’s drive-through is a major outing. Maybe families actually play games together. Friends exchange texts, checking up on one another and performing simple but appreciated acts of service for us older folks. What might be considered a limitation is transformed into an opportunity for new discoveries, even new relationships formed as we enter quietly into our room, closing the door and communing with our inner self or maybe even with God.

Mystics (i.e. people of constant prayer) such as Saints Augustine and Angela of Foligno (13th C.), typically describe feeling the pain of separation from the One they most love. But then they are given to hear Christ’s consoling words in their heart: St. Augustine discovered that God within him was “more intimate to me than I am to myself.” A thousand years later, Franciscan Saint Angela of Foligno records Christ’s message to her: “I am deeper within your soul than your soul is to itself. I have not kept myself at a distance.”

God’s fidelity and indwelling are constant themes throughout Scripture. Here are just a few of my favorite and most consoling passages:

Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. (John 14:23)
Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? (2 Corinthians 13:5)
What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? . . . I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers,nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35;38-39)
Behold, I am with you always, even until the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)

I suppose one could say that while social or physical distancing is necessary to prevent ill health through contagion, spiritual closeness is essential for our soul’s health. To be spiritually one with one another is to be one with God. To be one with God is to be one with others.

Good health!