Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
One of the earliest memories of a religious function that I can recall was attending Stations of the Cross on Friday evenings. Mass, when I was a child, was in Latin, and even if it was in English our parish sound system basically sounded like crackling cellophane but only good and loud. During stations, the priest and accompanying entourage made its mournful procession up and down the main aisle to the various verses of the Stabat Mater leaving a much firmer impression on a young impressionable mind. At four years old, my theological acumen was not too sharp, but a four-year-old was smart enough to figure out that this was serious business. Death was never hidden from our family, and like most families of Irish descent, going to funerals provided the weekly social outing. Stations were a story about a death and as I grew older the pieces of the story began to merge so that by the early years of grade school the fundamental story became clear: Jesus died because he loved me. I did not fully understand all the implications of this death and time and distance from those first stations make me realize that I perhaps never will. But the fundamental message I received at those Friday night devotions remains clear as it did decades ago: God continues his invitation to a loving relationship no matter what it takes.