I would not be sad if I never heard the word unprecedented again. It crops up in every article, every new broadcast, every conversation. In these unprecedented times, we have lost the reassurance of the familiar. We are living a dim shadow of a Lent, stripped of all we know and hold dear. The familiar cycle of the liturgical year ruptured, comfort gone. It is only when we lose them that we realise how much the tiny details matter: the polished wood of a pew as we lean forward to pray, a trace of incense in the air, a shaft of light through stained glass, the glow of comfort and reassurance in front of the tabernacle.
Like all Catholics our family is struggling with the loss of the sacraments, of contact with our priests and our churches. It is spiritually numbing — like a never ending Holy Saturday, or like Narnia under the White Witch: always winter, never Christmas. Like Lewis's Wood Between the Worlds - our spiritual life is left hanging, incomplete, stifled.
Except that in this long Holy Saturday we can keep our eyes fixed on the prize, knowing that Easter, and Redemption will always come, and that the Holy Cross will always conquer — so what we feel and see is less important than what is, and was and always will be.
We must pray for our priests and we must pray for each other. God bless you all this Eastertide, and may you share in the glory of the triumph of the Cross, with love from our family to yours.
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