signs and symbols

On April 1, 1981, Michael and I announced to all our friends that we were engaged.

A very very young Michael and Maria, 

standing in front of the University of Texas Catholic Center, where we met 

We thought we were SO funny—not to mention clever—choosing April Fools' day to make the official announcement. As if our friends couldn’t already recognize the signs revealing where our relationship was headed!

I’ve been thinking a lot about signs, symbols, and the powerful ways that they genuinely reflect our inner lives, my inner life—and what’s important to me, while simultaneously becoming a metaphor for the big picture of (read everlasting) life.

It was a beautiful, intense and eventful Holy Week and Triduum, packed to the brim with symbolism.

And I hope you will forgive me, but even though we’re beginning the Easter season, it’s going to take me a while to process and digest the powerful liturgies of these past few days, particularly the Easter Vigil and all its signs and symbols.

following the yellow arrow, Camino de Santiago

Speaking of symbols--and before I forget, as promised, here’s what I wrote for the New York Times section “Room for Debate” on the topic, “What is the purpose of Lent,” which was published on Good Friday.  

By the way, the actual question proposed to me was, “is there a point to giving things up for Lent?” My response:

Ten years after my friend Pat and I walked 350 miles of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, we laugh about the vigorous women we were then. Pat is battling life-threatening brain cancer, and I’m learning to function with a diminishing chronic autoimmune condition.

It would be too simple to say our physical circumstances are a metaphor for the struggles and challenges of the Camino. In so many ways, the Camino is a metaphor for our whole lives: I can’t anticipate what struggles today will bring, but anything is doable one step at a time. Every uphill has a downhill. Hardship becomes manageable with a friend. Every single thing that I carry weighs me down, so I must choose wisely. 

In our culture, pain, suffering, worries, difficulties and grieving are all things to conquer — and to anesthetize as quickly as possible. Each of us is an addict looking for a quick fix. Drugs. Food. Exercise. Sex. Shopping. Disposable relationships. Whatever it takes to not feel bad, sad, hurt. 

Thus the question for me is not whether there’s a point to giving things up during Lent, but whether I should ever stop fasting from all that numbs, dulls and deadens me to life, all of life, as it is today — the good and the bad. Fasting makes me willing to try. 

For Christians, Good Friday stands alone in holiness and singularity. The day defines who and what we believe — and what makes us different. Christianity scandalously proposes a God who becomes human out of love for humanity. The scandal deepens when this God-made-man willingly accepts suffering and death out of complete trust. 

The Passion of Christ is not ultimately about how Christ suffered; it’s not a documentary on the History Channel. The Passion is about Jesus’ response. 

In the midst of intense pain, in spite of undeserved persecution and profound discrimination, Jesus keeps his eyes on God, commending his heart and entire being to the one he trusted completely and without reservation. Each Lent, I fast to remember.

Go here to read all of the entries.

I’m trying very hard to follow my friends’ sage advice to not read the comments published online! That being said, I want to thank you in advance for considering taking the time to write a comment at the NYTimes site demonstrating to the editor that you read my writing! 

this is it: blessings on your Palm Sunday

This is my closing Lenten post until Easter begins. As I mentioned before, during this Holy Week, I will be fasting from blogging, FB, Twitter, Pinterest, and most all things electronic.

Also, please pray with me as I ponder over the next couple of days the significance of fasting for the opinion piece I’ll be presenting to the NYTimes for their Good Friday “Room for Debate” section.

I’ve thought a lot about what I wanted to write for this Palm Sunday post, but after this morning, I had no doubt. I want to give you a taste of the powerful homily that our gifted pastor gave us this morning. It was a beautiful Palm Sunday liturgy at St. Mark the Evangelist.

Discussing why we commemorate the Passion of Christ, Fr. Tom Boyer emphasized,

The movies and the media and some shallow spiritualities might want to impress us with the ugliness, the suffering, the injustice, and the persecution, and that might be fine for moment or two, but you can’t stop there. The Passion of Christ is not about how Christ suffered, what happened to him, and how awful we might think it was. The Passion of Christ is about his response, not his persecution. 

For a long time before Jesus, people persecuted each other, and it has continued without a pause since Jesus himself suffered and died. People die horrible deaths. Innocent people die too, put to death by legal injection, the miscarriage of justice and the abuse of power and authority. Christ is still suffering in the poor, the abused, and victims of violence all over this earth. The tragedy is that it is all so common, and so disciples must look to the master to learn from him the response to all this because the Passion is not about suffering and persecution. It is about the response of Jesus. 

Watch and learn from the master. Despite his fear and his agony, he is focused on God and on others. He meets women who are weeping for him, and he tells them to weep for themselves. He hangs there with a criminal, and he comforts him with a promise of Paradise. No matter what happens in this Passion, it is never about him. He remains attentive and focused on God and the needs of others…   This is what we can learn from the Passion; not how Christ died, but what he still teaches us through his death about hope, about sacrifice, and about love for others.

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My prayer for you, and for me, for this holiest of weeks:

“Have mercy, Lord, on your Church,

as she brings you her supplications,

and be attentive to those who incline their hearts before you;

do not allow, we pray, those you have redeemed

by the death of your Only Begotten Son,

to be harmed by their sins or weighed down by their trials.

Through Christ our Lord.”

[Prayer over the people during Lent]

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O Sacred head, sung by Fernando Ortega

In this your bitter passion, Good Shepherd think of me.

With your most sweet compassion,

Unworthy though I be:

Beneath your cross abiding

For ever would I rest,

In your dear love confiding,

And with your presence blest.