As I write, the spring sun chasing snow from the shadows of our yard. We’re tending four, adolescent chickens in our basement until it is warm enough to send them outside. Fellow bee club members are offering a crash-course in swarm-catching as my beloved beehive succumbed to a mite infestation last week. I’m devouring Christie Purifoy’s gorgeous Roots & Sky, while plotting a renegade perennial pollinator garden on the ugly strip of dirt that lines the street behind our home.
In short, I’m itching for spring.
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It being Holy week and all, I figured: Why not sit a spell and consider what is about to unfold, and already unfolding?
Today is Holy Thursday—Maundy Thursday if you prefer. Actually, I just learned that ‘maundy’ is derived from the Latin, ‘mandatum,’ which means commandment. How striking that the day is commemorated for the commandment given the disciples to become the servant to one another…and that I am just now unpacking what that powerful title conveys.
So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do
-John 13: 12-15
Perspective
It’s been a year already since last Easter, and I’m anxious to embrace this Triduum in a new way. I can’t unlearn how viscerally or spiritually painful Good Friday can be, or how stark the contrast can feel between Friday and Sunday—a pace too break-neck for casual participation. Having had a year to sit with the Good Friday experience, I’m hoping that this year, I can enter into the week mindful of those for whom this day is impossibly difficult—a confirmation of hurt and brokenness, while begging for the grace of an Easter Sunday of celebration of resurrection.
If you’re finding yourself resonating with and struggling to move from the scenes or death and humiliation of Christ’s passion, to the joy of new life this Easter, know that I’m holding you with me in a particular way.
(Consequently I’m hoping to do this with children in-tow—flying solo—as my husband recently joined the choir to get his Gregorian chant fix. I’ll let you know how that goes…)
Holy Thursday
I’m also sharing my thoughts on a different angle of Holy Thursday on the Blessed Is She blog, today.
Blessings to you during these Holy days.