It is Holy Week, isn’t it? Honestly, it’s easy for me to lose track these days. Between Lukey’s vomiting and my own raging cough and cold and the end-of-the-quarter stress, I have to keep reminding myself that, spiritually speaking, this week is different from all the other weeks.
It never used to be like this. I used to be a Holy Week junkie, going to every service I could. But then — well — I had kids. One’s observance of Holy Week changes a bit when there are little ones involved. It becomes less about attending the marathon Easter Vigil and more about looking for little slips of holiness in the midst of daily living.
Three years ago, when Matthew was six months old, I wrote about this transition. My article “Baby’s First Holy Week” appeared in U.S. Catholic in March 2008. It’s now on their website; you can check it out here.
Whether you celebrate your Holy Week in a hushed church or in a toy-strewn living room, I hope it’s a blessed one.
This morning, on my jog, I was struck suddenly by the smell in the air: it smelled like spring. I’m not entirely sure I could analyze the components of this particular scent — I think pink jasmine and freesia were in there somewhere — but it was heavenly. And as I jogged past yards with tulips and calla lilies in bloom, I realized how hungry I am for this season, for its sunlight and sudden warmth.
My latest column, Planting Faith, was inspired by these jogs, and by the flowers I’ve seen blooming around me these last few weeks. Lately, some of the best spiritual insights come to me when I’m running. Maybe that’s God’s way of making sure I exercise more.
You have to love the Annunciation. It’s about a very young girl saying “yes” to something amazing — a “yes” that took jaw-dropping courage and faith. It’s about God choosing to become very, very small and grow inside the body of a woman. It’s about the very beginning of a baby who would one day become a man, an astonishing man who would smash prejudices, break bread with outcasts, treat women with equality and dignity, and preach an utterly subversive law of love.
So yeah… I kind of like today’s feast day.
I’m obviously not the first person to get all emotional when reflecting on the Annunciation. And while my medium is words, plenty of artists throughout the centuries have used paint and canvas to shed light on the subject. I’ve assembled a few Annunciation scenes here, in honor of the day and all that it has meant to billions of people since then. Take a look:
Annunciation by Mikhail Nesterov
I love the blue in Mary’s robe here. Something about the colors — the gold, the yellow, the green, the blue — makes me think of springtime. And hey, the Annunciation is all about new beginnings, isn’ t it?
Annunciation by Rubens
I’ve always loved the extravagance of Rubens’ paintings. This one is no exception. I have to say, though, that I’m not a big fan of the cat there in the foreground. In my gut, I am convinced that Mary was a dog person (clearly, I’m projecting).
Ecce Ancilla Domini! by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
This is one of the few paintings of the Annunciation where Mary actually seems … scared. She huddles against the wall as if for protection. Frankly, that makes a lot of sense to me. If an angel appeared in my room, hovering above the ground with fire coming out of his feet, I would not exactly be calm. So this depiction just seems realistic to me, which is why I love it. (Oh, and I’m a huge fan of Rossetti,andall the Pre-Raphaelites. I love them with the burning passion of a thousand suns.)
The Annunciation by Edward Burne-Jones
Speaking of Pre-Raphaelites, here’s one by Edward Burne-Jones. I love the Grecian elements in this painting, and I like how the perspective echoes some of the famous Renaissance paintings of the Annunciation. ( Deep inside me, there is a frustrated art historian dying to get out … can you tell?)
The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner
If we’re looking for realism, this is probably one of the best Annunciations I’ve seen. Mary actually looks like a young woman of humble background, not like some wealthy Italian beauty. The look on her face is fascinating, too: questioning, earnest, not entirely sure, but not too worried, either. This painting really moves me.
So what do you think ? Is there a painting here that you really like? Or do you have other favorites?
It’s been one of those days when I’ve really appreciated the little things … the sight of a tulip tree in bloom, Matthew pretending to be a lion, the smell of pink jasmine when I went on my evening jog. And now: the feel of chilly spring air coming through an open window, and the silence of a household in which young boys are sleeping, and the tick-tick of the Our Lady of Guadalupe clock on the desk.
My latest BustedHalo article is all about celebrating the little things, but through the eyes of a very unlikely character: Holden Caulfield, of The Catcher in the Rye. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always loved that book. When J.D. Salinger died in January, I knew almost immediately that I wanted to write something about Holden. And putting the article together was a great opportunity to reflect on the novel, and to think about why I love it so much, and to realize how it dovetails with the spiritual life that I, a stressed-to-the-max teaching mom, am constantly trying to cobble together … some days more successfully than others.
About fifteen years ago, I bought a folk music CD that featured a pretty fabulous guitar piece. It had the intriguing title “Musical Priest.” According to the liner notes, it’s a traditional Irish melody (how it got that name is anyone’s guess).
Now I have an affinity for things Irish, as you know if you were reading my blog this time last year. Basically, I’m a total wannabe. And around mid-March, I usually turn green with envy (hah; pun intended) for anyone who gets to claim a direct link to the Emerald Isle.
So it seems like a great time to revisit “Musical Priest.” It’s really, really easy to feel Irish when you hear this sprightly little tune. And thanks to the wonder of YouTube, I’ve found a video of the song being played by — ready for this? — a real musical priest. That is seriously cool.
After yesterday’s driving rain, it was extraordinarily pleasant to wake up this morning and see … sun. The sky is blue, there are just a few puffy clouds off in the distance, and it suddenly feels like spring. It may even be dry enough to take Matthew to the park.
It’s been a tough week, as you may know from my last post. Prayer has helped. Spending quality time with the boys has also helped. And it may sound weak to say this, but I think the weather is going to help, too.
It’s like Julian of Norwich said: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Sometimes, you’ve just got to go on faith … and sunlight.
Yesterday was not the greatest day. I won’t go into the gory details, but let’s just say that it was one of those days when you can’t help but feel that raising young kids + working outside the home = a one-way ticket to Looneyland. In a nutshell, I’m having a really, really hard time juggling it all.
So what did I do? Rather than eating my way through an entire box of Godiva chocolates, I got smart. After I put the boys down to bed, I lit two candles in front of the icon of Theotokos and sat on the couch and prayed the rosary. It was this scene, but in the dark, with flickering candles:
I may lose my Mary credentials for saying this, but I don’t pray the rosary regularly. It’s more my “go-to prayer” in stressful times. And it was perfect last night. As always, while I prayed, certain thoughts and worries swirled to the surface of my consciousness. I skimmed them off and set them aside — for future reflection in some cases, or rejection in others. It felt like a spiritual cleansing. And as I kept working my way around that lifeline of beads, my breathing slowed, and my heart slowed, and my words slowed. In the flickering candlelight, Jesus and Mary looked almost alive.
And I had a sudden realization: the short bookcase on which the icon stands is a bookcase that belonged to my grandparents. It was always in their living room when I was growing up. I thought about how I once saw a black-and-white photo of them as young newlyweds, circa 1940, and I recognized that very bookcase in the background. And as I said my Hail Marys, I thought of my grandparents, and how amazing it is that my boys stack trains on this very bookshelf, and how much my grandparents would have adored Matthew and Lukey, and how much my grandma — a big Mary fan — would have been delighted beyond measure to see me inviting Mary into my stress and icks. And that made me happy, there in the candlelit darkness.
I haven’t figured it all out, this crazed circus act of working motherhood. I’m probably going to be a stress-mess until June. But last night was a pretty beautiful thing, that little period of calm, that reminder that I’ve got Mary and Jesus — and Grandma and Grandpa — squarely in my corner.
I saw about fifteen minutes of them. I came home from a jog this evening and my husband had the TV on, so I caught a small snippet before dinner. Sadly, it was the section where they award all the prizes for Short Feature (otherwise known as Best Random Filmette that No One Watching At Home Has Seen) … in other words, not the highlight of Oscardom, from my [admittedly limited] perspective. But whatever. I got to see two young acresses whom I don’t know (Carey Mulligan and Zoe someone?) present the award and I got to marvel at their outrageous dresses, which is really the whole point of the Oscars, isn’t it? This is especially true when you, like me, see one movie a year. Once upon a time, I used to see nearly all of the Best Picture nominees. What changed? Oh, right; I had kids.
Speaking of which, it hit home to me just how much we have to control our TV-viewing now that Matthew is at the very impressionable age of three. At one point, the Oscars happened to show a clip of some movie with a large, warty, voracious-looking alien creature, and I instantly clicked the TV off. Alas, I was not quite so quick on the trigger when Ben Stiller came out, with blue skin and yellow eyes, made up to look like an Avatar character (or so I think. That did not happen to be the movie I saw last year.) Matthew stared at him, wide-eyed, and Scott and I instantly spun into damage control mode. “Ha Ha Ha! Look at him! He’s so FUNNY and SILLY!” Oh, man. Matthew is in a phase where many things are “scary.” Last night he got frightened by a crumpled piece of cardboard under the dresser in his room. If he comes wailing into our bedroom at 3 A.M., I’m sending him to Ben Stiller’s house.
But anyhow, it was still a fun fifteen minutes. And though I don’t savor the Oscars like I used to, I know that it won’t be long before this phase of parenting changes, and I’m able to see at least a few of the Best Picture nominees again. Heck, maybe I’ll be able to take the boys to some of them.
I'm a formerly lapsed Catholic who likes to write about faith, real life, and how the two intersect. Oh, and I love Mary -- check out my book Mary and Me below!
It is Holy Week, isn’t it? Honestly, it’s easy for me to lose track these days. Between Lukey’s vomiting and my own raging cough and cold and the end-of-the-quarter stress, I have to keep reminding myself that, spiritually speaking, this week is different from all the other weeks.
