I am a slow processor. I would like to think that during religious practices, I am present; reflection comes later, as lingering thoughts come together in contemplative moments. Repetitive rituals suit me because the context of my reflection changes over the years. With Easter now just past, I am having a think about Lent and Holy Week.
There is something new for me each year as I ponder the 40-day progression of Lent, from Shrovetide and Ash Wednesday to Maundy Thursday, and the Holy Week remembrances of Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter.
As a child, I loved attending Stations of the Cross with my mother, never tiring of her trying again to explain to me what was “good” about Good Friday. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, each educated by nuns, loved church—the candles, incense, prayer and chanting—officiated in pre-Vatican II Latin with the priest’s back to the congregation.
If you examined the lives of these women against church policy they would not have stacked up as “good” Catholics. I spare you the details. They just loved church, fully at ease with the rhythms and rituals of the liturgical year without much concern for dogma, doctrine, or policy. That seems about right to me; Jesus’s thoughts on who and what was “good” were also topsy-turvy in the context of his day. Jesus seemed not overly concerned about hanging out with “good” people as defined by status or doctrinal knowledge.
My foremothers were hard-working women. Church provided contemplative space, time for their own thoughts carried by mystery. These women paved my path to Quakerism, pro-mystery and self-reflection. My take on Gospel narratives and the rituals that arise from them is perhaps idiosyncratic. I am easy with that.
Here’s what I am pondering this year:
Lent recalls Jesus’s 40 days of fasting, prayer, and temptation prior to the start of his public ministry. Moses and Elijah (Mohammad, too) took a similar sit-down before God. My take-away this year: Speaking out might best follow an extended period of profound quiet, self-searching, and reflection. (Further instructions at Jas 1:19-21).
Lenten preparation begins during Shrovetide, the three days prior to Ash Wednesday. On Shrove Tuesday, parishioners bring their palms blessed the previous Palm Sunday to be burned and mixed with oil for the ashes that will be imposed on Ash Wednesday. “For dust thou art and to dust thou shall return.” (Gen. 3:19). I have always loved this reflection on death. It simplifies and focuses my living.
Maundy Thursday marks the end of Lent, as it remembers Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Foot washing, traditionally done for guests by servants, is based on ancient hospitality customs. Jesus doing this for his followers, and John’s urging that followers should continue the practice amongst themselves, is certainly about humility and community, but the status reversal also has a “you own it now” quality, to my mind: “I am leaving; you carry on.” (Check out Jn. 13:1-17, 34-35).
Holy Week starts with Palm Sunday. The seeming street-theater jubilation of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem has a “give it to the Man” quality. I am pondering the utter ignorance of the people in the midst of that joy, even as Jesus knew what was unfolding. I am faced again with a sense of a world turned upside down. Thinking of Mardi Gras celebrations prior to Lent I weigh the possible meanings of giving oneself over to joy. I also ponder: Who is stalwart among us amidst foolishness?
Remembering, reenactment, repetition is necessary because I am forgetful. There is assumption that these rituals will be repeated: “Hang on to your palms, people, Ash Wednesday will come again.” And, as the rituals are repeated through years, I grow confused: Which comes first—celebration, death, renewal? This speaks to me about forgiveness: “You will forget. Jesus, the Teacher, believed in you. Keep at it.”
Preachers say in this season that you need to “walk through the graveyard to get to new life.” And so, weeks now after Ash Wednesday, the Gospel narrative invites me to contemplate death again as I join the women moving toward the tomb after Jesus’s crucifixion. The women have waited through the sabbath to perform the rituals due the dead. The menfolk, the visible leadership of this movement, have skedaddled— not a good look and, mind you, male hands are creating this narrative. What reflection does this invite me to? Again, I ponder: Who is stalwart among us?
The final chapter of Mark, a climax scene to be sure, offers a significant plot twist—the oldest version, concluding at Mk.16:8, without a resurrection appearance!
Now here’s something to consider: Without the easy grace of resurrection, and the doctrinal argument, the happy ending, that Jesus died for my sins, what am I left with? Other Gospels give the faithful an immediate resurrection appearance, added eventually in Mark as well (Mk.16:9-20). But without that resurrection in the original version, there is creative space. What does staying with loss and fear invite me to? What is the work of a people gathered without easy grace?
It seems to me that lingering in loss invites existential inquiry, and perhaps some covenantal responsibility: “I remain. What is mine to do?” The first words of Jesus, fresh from his 40-day fast and reflection in the wilderness, the first words of his public ministry, were: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Mt. 4:17)
For what am I to repent? For what, am I waiting? It seems, I am still asking the question my mother could not answer for me: What is “good” about Good Friday?
That is what I am processing. Where does your prayer and contemplation take you? I am truly curious.
Sarah Gant
Clerk, NEYM Meeting Accompaniment Group
[email protected]