[My friend Dan Wing has asked my thoughts on this strange Easter. Here they are.]
Dan, I have often shared with you my love for our Cathedral and how I miss it during the long winter months I spend in Florida. The parish I attend there is a sad affair, a church that feels old and tired. Literally old, as the congregation is almost 100% retired and 65+. And figuratively tired, as there seems to be no awareness of any of the challenges the church is now facing.
In Montana, I feel old; but in Florida, the world feels old. I prefer the Montana feeling. And throughout the Florida winter, I dream of attending mass in the magnificent Cathedral of St. Helena when spring arrives.
At my conversion, you helped me find my place in God’s world. At the time I especially felt the truth in Psalm 122: “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.” You and Cherie were two of the ones who most persistently said it unto me.
And I remember that joy I felt, and still feel, whenever I have the chance to enter our Cathedral.
Yet now I have been back in Montana for a month, and still have not been to a single mass here. I am of course grateful for the opportunity to be of help to my family in this time of crisis. And my heart leaps with joy whenever I see our beautiful Cathedral on the hill as I drive through town. But still…
I know you and so many others feel the same sense of loss that I do. In my case I wonder if this sense of loss could be a part of the purgatory my sinful heart needs.
The emptiness that has often hit me this month has sometimes seemed like an extended Holy Saturday, a day with a conspicuous absence in its heart. Now, He is Risen!
But the challenge continues. How to keep the holiness of God in my heart without the help of the sacraments and our priests? Very hard, indeed. The Magnificat helps with regular devotions. And my daily diet of “Thank You, Lord” prayers find no shortage of occasions.
But still I long for the day when I again hear “Let us come into the house of the Lord” for mass. And I think it may be a foretaste of the day I can walk joyfully into God’s full and complete presence. God willing.
Yours in Christ
O Ben Finiti 