Tag: altar

Preparing the Altar

Preparing the Altar

Since my homeward journey from work has construction, I have been obligated to seek different routes over the past few weeks. Either as a result of the construction or simply how it always is, I find myself waiting in more traffic in parts of town with which I am not as familiar. One road with a bit of traffic has a few places where people often turn and so I try very hard to watch the lights and the movement of traffic in order to not be that person who annoyingly blocks intersections. I get a bit embarrassed when we wind up in completely stopped traffic and a person who could turn cannot because I’m blocking the route.

The other day it worked perfectly. The car next to me knew what they were doing and so when the light turned red, we held back and left plenty of space for vehicles in the opposing lane to turn through and carry on their way. It was nice to be next to a car that was completely stopped, not inching forward or worried that they might be a second delayed or inconvenienced. The light turned green and no cars had yet moved forward, but the car behind me honked and, when I glanced in my side mirror, gestured impatiently for me to go.

I felt a flash of anger. The injustice of being honked at–couldn’t they see that I was letting people through? I perhaps moved my arm upwards with a fling of annoyance. Then I accelerated and was no further behind the next car than if I had been inches from their bumper the entire time.

Once the anger passed, I kept wondering why the person was so impatient. The traffic was all still there. I wasn’t mindlessly on my phone. The second the light turns green doesn’t mean that the 5th or 6th car in line should expect to be moving. Why are we so impatient?

We don’t like to wait. We don’t want to feel like we are getting left behind. We don’t want to feel like our time is wasted or that progress could be made but isn’t. We don’t want to be pointlessly sitting at a light waiting for the people around us to get their act together. And I don’t think any of that is really that deep or profound or unknown.

Today, however, I was at Mass as we commemorated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and I experienced a moment of waiting that I hadn’t recognized before. After the homily, I was considering the various crosses in my life and attempting to surrender them to Jesus. Or to at least acknowledge them and continue to hope that Christ’s victory would someday be found in those very places. As I was praying, I noticed what was happening as the priest received the vessels from the server, unfolded the corporal, and poured drops of wine and water into the chalice.

We were waiting.

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A Sacrifice of the Will

A Sacrifice of the Will

I purchased it several years ago, but this Lent I decided to start reading Hinds’ Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard. While I don’t want to give too much away for those who may be interested in reading it, I do want to focus on one point that has struck me repeatedly throughout the book.

Several times, Much-Afraid, the character followed in the story, is called to sacrifice her will for the Shepherd’s will. This story is an allegory of the Christian life, but the repeated need to make altars upon which to lay one’s own will, is rather striking. Each time, she assembles an altar from whatever materials lie close at hand and then she places her own will on the altar. A fire alights from somewhere and consumes the sacrifice, making a burnt offering of her very will.

There Much-Afraid built her first altar on the mountains, a little pile of broken rocks, and then, with the Shepherd standing close beside her, she laid down on the altar her trembling, rebelling will. A little spurt of flame came from somewhere, and in an instant nothing but a heap of ashes was laying on the altar.

Hinds’ Feet on High Places, pp. 71-72

In the midst of reading this book, the coronavirus has swept the nation and world. It felt very real when my bishop suspended all Masses. Suddenly, I was in a similar position to the people I ministered in Honduras, who go without Mass for undetermined periods of time. It was something I never considered happening here. During the season of Lent, I suddenly felt like a tremendous sacrifice was being asked of me. Yet the end probably won’t come at Easter, with the beautiful Triduum marking the end of the wandering in the desert. Who knows how long we will be left to wander in this sacramental desert.

The Lord asked us to place our wills upon the altar and to accept them being made into a burnt offering, a living sacrifice for the Lord. Arguments about what ought to be done aside, I am confident the Lord can use this time to shape us, to pull us out of the normal and help us see the miraculous in what we mistook for ordinary.

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Perhaps the World Ends Here

Perhaps the World Ends Here

I found this poem through a podcast that has a “poem of the day” that they read and analyze a bit. While I often forget, reading and learning more poetry follows a desire I have to immerse my life in more beauty.

The poem is called “Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo.

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

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