First Sunday in April

A Sunday without Mass would feel pretty barren.

Our bishop, Bishop Myron Cotta, was one of many bishops in the world to give his diocese a dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass, to stop the spread of (specifically) the corona virus.

Fortunately there is technology abounding, and we are able to "attend" Mass by watching a televised service.

Doing so is simply a matter of choice. Since Bishop Cotta gave us the dispensation, we wouldn't have to worry about it, and don't have to even think about it if we don't want to. But I've come to find consolation in the Liturgy; it is prayer, a way of bringing me to accept the contact of the God Who created me. It's a prayer that's been going on for over two thousand years, and each time I experience it, my heart can renounce time and space and be a part of the Sacrifice that happened once, for all, for all time -- like tips of lightning bolts that spread across the sky, all part of the same electrical discharge. Mass is all one thing, no matter where, no matter when. I like that feeling of unity, a unity that is completely about love.

What does that have to do with the flower in the picture?

Not a lot, unless you look for God in all things, and that the Liturgy and the tulip -- no kidding, it really is a tulip -- are both beautiful, and allow me to be lost in wonder in a world that some would like to paint as terrifying and heart-crushing, either because they have been indoctrinated to fear and avoid the world, or to improve their ratings.

And now I must encourage myself to see God in the rain outside that unseasonably is keeping me inside the house when I would rather be outside slobbering over my little tomato plants like an obsessive mother. Thank you, God, for the rain.

In

Today is the last Wednesday of Lent. Tomorrow is Holy Thursday, and the beginning of the Triduum. I began Lent with a fever, and am trying not to be annoyed that I'm ending Lent with another one, after years of not getting sick. 2014: The Fever Lent.

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. It's making me remember this Lent, which could be good; the last Lent I actually remember was one during which I walked every day, praying the Rosary as I strode along with Howie on his leash. Before that, I don't really remember Lents, except for 2001, when I slept on the floor and kept a dream journal -- which proved fruitful for me. But I will remember this Fever Lent.

Focusing on the Ignatian Examen as much as my fevered brain can, I've tried to let myself get away from thinking that this world is the reality of mankind. It isn't. It's a construct, much like the world of The Matrix. (At least the first one in the trilogy -- the other two were just stupid.) We move through it, but it isn't what's real.

Or better said, it isn't what is ultimately real.

Anyway, the Examen begins with this sentence: "Recall you are in the presence of God." Now somehow, that calls to mind being in the presence of the King, or maybe being called before the presence of the judge, as though we stand before God. God over there, us over here. We are in front of God. We are in God's room. God sits on his throne and smacks his head over the idiot standing with hat in hand bawling, "Please, Massa, don' beat on this poor old sinner!"

Phraseology can be tricky. What if the word in that sentence -- "in" -- was the focus?

God is not over there or apart from us. God is All in All. There is no "place" that God goes away to when he's tired of hearing us whine; indeed, God doesn't get tired.

The presence of God is what is real. I need to recall daily that I am in that presence. Embedded, carried, held, -- inside, not apart. Not standing in front of, not down on Earth looking up at clouds wondering if God is reclining up there, not on the other side of some impenetrable wall. This creation is God, held in being by God, and I am in that.

For me, this is a good thought to carry away from this Lent. 2014, the Lent of Fever and In.