Do You Feel Like Singing?

Maundy Thursday is usually when things turn dark and somber. We try to create a space of quiet and heaviness as we enter into Christ’s betrayal, arrest, and agonizing death. We traditionally leave Maundy Thursday in silence. But the apostles left in song. 

On Thursday morning, (most of) the apostles still had no idea of what was to come. They had watched Jesus enter Jerusalem in welcomed glory just days earlier and speak in the Temple. They were celebrating the Passover, a holiday of survival. They probably entered that upper room in good spirits. 

Then things got strange. Jesus insisted on washing their feet. But he was always trying to teach lessons they didn’t fully understand. Then he announced that one of them was going to betray him—what a shocking discovery! But then the Passover meal continues. 

Their world has just been turned upside down, in ways they don’t understand. There is fear and confusion. Their heads are probably swirling. But there is the Passover feast, an annual tradition of rituals. The holiday has prescribed steps, prescribed words. Internally everything is a mess; externally they can hold on to the familiar motions. Are these rote holiday traditions grounding, comforting? Are they taking on new meaning in light of sitting there with what Jesus has said? 

Monday Motivation: Father Thomas Keating

"The spiritual journey is a struggle to be ever more available to God and to let go of the obstacles to that transforming process. The gospel is not merely an invitation to be a better person. It is an invitation to become to become divine." –Father Thomas Keating

Servant of God Élisabeth Leseur

Pauline Élisabeth Arrighi was born into a wealthy family in Paris on Oct. 16, 1866. She was sick as a child and suffered from health issues throughout her life. Élisabeth grew up conventionally religious. Her highly educated socialite circles were generally antireligious, including her husband Félix Leseur. Félix was a doctor and a leader in the anticlerical movement. He had told Élisabeth that he lost his faith during his medical studies

Élisabeth and Félix wed in 1889. The couple was close, even though they disagreed on the matter of religion. Initially Félix had agreed to respect Élisabeth’s practice of the faith, but as time went on, he grew more critical, even openly ridiculing her beliefs. For a time, Élisabeth abandoned her relationship with God.

In 1897, Félix gave her a copy of The History of the Origins of Christianity by Ernest Renán, a book critical of the Church. Finding the arguments in the book weak, Élisabeth began to explore Christianity deeper. This study led her to a deeper devotion; she underwent a conversion. She read the scriptures, Church Fathers, and mystic writers. She worked with charities that helped the poor and continued to pray for her atheist husband.

Monday Motivation: Thomas Merton

"God gives Himself to those who give themselves to Him. The way does not matter much, as long as it is the way He has chosen for us. I find that I can get just as close to God in studying the dry problems of moral theology as by reading the more burning pages of the mystics….Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life."  –Thomas Merton