Seeking Understanding
As Holy Week begins, we are not where we should be. We should be in processions waving palms, we should be gathering for the Eucharist, we should be together. We are not. But physical distance cannot separate us from one another in spirit and in love, and nothing can ever separate us from the love of God.
No matter where you are, or how you’re feeling, there is a chance across these days to build up the Body of Christ by placing all we are into God’s hands. By reaching out to each other and making best use of the communication tools we’ve got. Our shared ministry, lay and ordained, is interwoven with YouTube clips, Zoom passwords, online Passion plays, Communion celebrated quietly at kitchen tables and in the corners of our homes. We yearn for togetherness and we know we’re together no matter what. It is not oppression or violence, anything like what Jesus and his first followers had to endure, that keeps us from gathering. It is the need to preserve life, and not to destroy it or threaten it, that is keeping us all physically apart. It is right not to gather. It is wrong not to gather. We have to hold both in tension as best we can, walking the way of the cross within the familiar yet strange environments of our own homes. Wave your palms, listen to the Passion Gospel, ask for God’s grace to be poured out into your hearts. You will find God waiting for you there.
Here are the medieval words of Hadewijch of Antwerp:
You who want knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within
There you will find
the clear mirror
already waiting
During the Palm Sunday service, our soprano Christine Buras and our alto Jess Dandy sang music and words by another medieval theologian and composer Hildgedard of Bingen. Here is one of the responsories, which began our Palm Sunday service:
O bloody red, that flowed from up the height
divinity has touched: a bloom you are
that winter with the serpent’s blast
has never marred.