Ebb and Flow

I was returning to my seat when I saw the daylight streaming through the windows. I walked toward them, and looked down on the parking lot.

It was filled with vehicles; some were double-parked. There were people walking from cars, toward cars, a hive of activity on a sunny Friday.

They had come to spend a few moments with Jesus, on the day that he was crucified and died. Inside, as the Good Friday service began, it was as crowded as a weekend Mass.

The liturgy and the faithful on that day ebb and flow. It's quite unique. St. Thomas conducts a blood drive throughout the day; a "live" Stations of the Cross is performed by the youth group, and the Good Friday service itself begins at 1:30 p.m.

People come and go, very unlike an ordinary weekend Mass. The priests, at the beginning of the liturgy, prostrate themselves in front of the altar, literally lying face down on the ground in the midst of the faithful.

The choir today, which must be over 30 people shoehorned into their normal space, is dressed in bright red and is fully prepared. We listen to hymns that we listen to each Good Friday, and the significance of where we are, and what we've done, grows for me with each passing year.

It's as if God has bestowed a special gift on me, allowing me to discover quite by accident this special secret, this place that I return to each year, and that I seem to derive more from each year. Jan is beside me, as she has been for over three decades now, and life, despite the message of the day, is good. It's good to be back.

Violins, horns, a bass guitar and several other unusual instruments complement the choir, in one mournful song after another. It's as if I've begun a descent into Mordor. I can't yet anticipate the joy of Easter, except as relief to this sadness.

As the liturgy ends at 3 p.m., I think, there's a lot of work to do in this world, and I wonder about my role. I don't know where this journey will end. Shoot, I don't even know where it begins.

But I'm ready to go one step at a time, forward. Happy Easter.