As we enter the First Week of Lent,
I can remember back when. In my early days, and that is way back when, in those days before every home had a tv set and McDonalds was still a dream in someone's imagination, back that far, the arrival of Lent meant that many of our evenings and even Sunday afternoons would be claimed.
By Church!
In our parish Wednesday and Friday evenings meant Stations of the Cross and Benediction. (Google these if you do not know what I am talking about!)
Seven o'clock we were in church and that was that. And the church was crowded. Slowly, the mini-procession - cross bearer, two candle bearers, likely still another server or two and the priest - made its way around the church, pausing at each station for song and reflection and prayer. It was our devotional journey of prayerful reflection on the price of God's love for us.
On Sundays there were also the Stations only this time in mid-afternoon, at three as I remember.
As an added "bonus," because we were youngsters and students in a parochial school, we had Stations of the Cross for Children on Friday afternoons before we were dismissed from school for the weekend.
We got a lot of Stations of the Cross growing up.
But we had more!
The Feast of St. Joseph was a big deal especially in our parish where our pastor's first name was Joseph. This provided a special treat in that every year we had March 19th as a free day - no school! However, even that came at a price. On that day we had to show up for Mass. The sisters warned us that we had no assurance that Father was going to give us that free day, so come to Mass and be prepared for a school day. But every year Father came through.
Oh, there was also another slight fee to that "free day."
We had a Novena to St. Joseph with special prayers, public prayers, I might add, every evening at seven and on Sunday at three. On the days we had Stations, the novena prayers were added to the Stations. This meant nine days more in church.
And as if all of this praying was not enough, back then we had a Feast in honor of Our Sorrowful Mother, Mary. It came the Friday before Good Friday and, yes, it came with its own novena!
That was nine days more in church.
And just imagine when Lent came early in the year and we were "blessed" with a convergence of all three! Stations followed by the Novena to St. Joseph followed by the Novena to Our Sorrowful Mother! And then Benediction!
Giving up candy for Lent back when was no problem. We were in church so much that we didn't have time for candy!
Giving up movies for Lent back when was no problem. We were in church so much we had no time to go to a movie!
And looking at this on the serious side, yes, indeed, we were in church a lot praying together as a community. We were gaining a large part of our sense of being The Church from the fact that we took the time to pray together as Church - young and old, haves and have nots, from all sides of the political spectrum. We prayed together and from that emerged a sense of more than neighborhood. We were a community, and perhaps even more, a family.
Praying together bonded us together.
And when we consider today's sense of individualism - well, is it any wonder we seem not able to get along anymore?
We don't even pray together!
Living here in Silicon Valley, I’ve been witness to behavior that in many ways, lacks even the most basic common courtesy being shown towards each other. It’s as if people are so wrapped-up in an over-inflated sense of self-importance (mind you, this is simply my own person opinion based on observation).
ReplyDeleteA couple weeks ago I was on a flight to Richmond VA. In the Delta ‘SKY’ magazine I read an article about life in Silicon Valley. What grabbed my attention was a statement where some sort of opinion poll, that about 45% of the people in the valley considered themselves to be either an Agnostic or an Atheist. I thought to myself, well that certainly explains a lot. I remember a simple lesson taught at a very young age; You are NOT the center of the Universe.
On nationally some syndicated shows that I listed to on occasion, it’s been said that more than once; “It’s not merely a coincidence that, by taking God out of our daily lives to the extent we’ve seen in recent years, that the fabric of society has degraded in the manner that it has.” I certainly hope the downward slide stops and reverses, but at least I am one who chooses to live by the family (old school) values we were fortunate to have be raised with.
Thank you Mom, Dad, Grandparents and of course the extended family!!