Different

Yes!
It is going to be different this year.
It is time for Triduum, for Christians, the holiest of days, the center of our year.
For our sisters and brothers of the Jewish tradition, it is Passover, also a time most sacred and holy.
For me, personally, I can look back at a number of years, and, believe me, I do have a number of years now. In all of my years there has never been a time more significant, more treasured than this time of year.
Looking back at past blogs, I have in the past shared with you some of my Triduum memories.
There was the Babushka Brigade that in my way younger years would emerge early every Holy Saturday morning for the blessing of the fire. Actually, it was more than just a fire blessing in the Polish tradition.
Contained within the fire were branches, thorn branches!
And when the fire was blessed and doused, there was the scramble for some of those branches. The Babushka Brigade sprung into action!
And then there was that Holy Thursday/Good Friday night into morning when, as a teenager I was able to convince a group of my teen friends to stir in the middle of the night to go to church (open all night back then) and spend an hour in prayer - specifically the hour between two and three A.M.!
Try and convince the police that this gang of teens was really headed to church!
They coould see a gang of teens roaming the streets in the middle of the night. They needed to see the lights on and doors open to the church.
But for me Holy Thursday always, far back as I can remember, meant Mass and Communion and celebrating still anew that great Gift that the Lord Jesus gave to us on the night before He died.
In my early years Holy Thursday Mass was in the morning. Mass ended with the Eucharistic procession and then all day long and on into and throughout the night a vigil of prayer.
And I was there, most often one of the ones actually serving the Mass.
In the 1950's Pope Pius XII initiated the first wave of Holy Week reforms.
Mass on Holy Thursday would now be in the evening, in a sense uniting us with the gathering in that Upper Room on the night before Jesus died.
Because back then, to receive Communion meant fasting (no - and I do mean NO - food and/or drink from midnight) to enable and encourage our Communion at the Mass of the Lord's Supper, a three hour rule was established. No solid food from three hours before Communion and no liquids for one hour before.
Easy enough!
But one year I forgot!
And do I still remember that one!
I don't remember what it was that I ate, but I did eat something and it was solid and it was within that three hour timeframe!
And I was serving the Mass that evening.
And I would not be able to receive Communion!
Unthinkable!
Before Mass began I was there early to help get things ready.
My pastor was also there to oversee matters.
And my pastor was not exactly anything easily described as "left of center."
Strict rules! Strict traditions!
But I took a chance and laid out before him that I had eaten something. Could not receive Communion.
And I still remember what came next.
"Why not?" he asked. "What's more important? Keeping that rule? or receiving your Lord? You're hungry, aren't you? For Him? So, receive Him!"
You're hungry for Him!
This year Holy Thursday a whole lot of hungry people are just going to continue to go hungry!
Things are different this year.
We will not gather at the Table.
We will only have occasion to share in Communion and Community by some streaming service. Vicariously! At a distance! Personal distancing!
Maybe this year we are even hungrier than usual, and we should be.
Things are different this year.
We will remain hungry and I will join with you in that hunger.
On his first Holy Thursday as our Holy Father, Francis challenged priests to acquire the smell of the sheep.
For so many Holy Thursdays we gathered at that Table.
Not this year.
The sheep will go hungry.
And I will join you in that hunger.
This year that is the "smell of the sheep."
Hunger!
And it hurts!