“Tell us, Mary: say what thou didst see upon the way. 

The tomb the Living did enclose; I saw Christ’s glory as He rose!”

Victimae Paschali, Sequence for Easter Sunday

Victimae Paschali Laudes, the medieval sequence chanted before the proclamation of the Gospel on Easter Sunday, tries to express in beautifully inadequate words the reality of what we celebrate during the Easter liturgy. 

Christ Crucified (c. 1632) by Diego Velázquez. Museo del Prado, Madrid

“In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth will be seen as no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.” ~St. Teresa of Avila.

Whenever I hear or read this quote, I am reminded of one of the most “inconvenient” nights of suffering I had in a hotel many years ago. My husband and I were living in Italy at the time, and we were driving home from a vacation to the north of Italy. We decided to stop for the night at a place that sounded nice: “The Romantic Hotel.” The night was anything but romantic. The Italians didn’t put screens on their windows, there was no air conditioning, it was summertime, and the mosquitoes were hungry. It was a night from hell. But we were tired, so we took refuge under the sheets and tried to sleep.

My wife and I have never been big fans of deep or controversial movies. The reason being that if we want to go to a movie, we want to go for the experience of escaping into an adventure or travelling to a distant alien planet or rooting for the underdog who travels into hostile territory to destroy a ring that nobody else has the courage or will to do. Recently, we took a different turn and decided to view the movie Unplanned.

After first vespers of the fifth Sunday of Lent we enter the beautiful but solemn season of Passiontide. 

We went to a friend’s Church last weekend for a Baptism, and sat behind a family where a mother was sitting with her 4 boys, ranging from elementary school to high school. Next to them was a man in the aisle in a wheelchair, with a breathing mask on and his limbs strapped to the chair. I didn’t know what family the man belonged to until a beep on the chair sent the mother of the 4 boys rushing to the chair to take care of the matter. Then, at the Our Father, the youngest boy – maybe 5^th grade?- reached over and grabbed the man’s hand. I then saw his ring, and knew he was the husband and father of this family.