The young lad, attached to a drip, slipped back to sleep again giving me another few hours sat alone on the floor in a Lithuanian hospital. We were on a walking pilgrimage to Vilnius and three days in Noah had come down very, very sick. The rest of the group of teens, priests and one or two adults continued with the walk and I waited in the hospital. There was to be no Mass for three whole days. Oh my, I have not ached so deeply for our Lord like I did in those days. It was like a permanent thump to the stomach, pain somewhere in a depth I couldn’t reach. Noah recovered, pretty quickly really so a taxi was booked to take us straight to Vilnius to join the group for Mass. I had never experienced a hunger or desire like it, when the taxi was 10 minutes late arriving I began running up and down strange roads looking for another like a mad woman, tears just behind my eyes that I would miss Him for another day. We arrived in ample time, up the little steps to the chapel containing the image of Our Lady of Ostrabrama. I knelt and sobbed through the whole Mass, so grateful was I just to be there.
There are other times, like being caught standing in the flower bed of a convent in Rome about to straddle a wall and jump 6- 7 feet down the other side because I couldn’t get the gate open to get to Mass, One of the many nuns leaving from morning prayer, waved me out of the flower bed and calmly pressed a small button, the gate opened and I ran all the way to St Peters.
In Turin, Running ( and I honestly don’t run unless it’s life and death) up the side of a steep mountain to Sacra di San Michele, up dozens and dozens of endless steps to make the midday Mass, I arrived, red faced, breathless with two minutes to spare, just able to pant “Mass” to the monk at the door, to be told their was no public Mass. My heart broke. Literally broke.
But this time is different, I heard Dr Anthony lilies quoted this week as saying this is like a long Holy Saturday. And yes, I feel that sharply. That sense of absence and the deep ache at the sight of an empty tabernacle, but also an anticipation, not of having missed out but having not yet received all that is to come. There are still promises yet to be fulfilled.
I am sat in the boat with Jesus, just as Pope Francis spoke of on Friday. It is surely rocky but by His grace my eyes are fixed on him in a way I feel mostly oblivious to the the storm. I’m wrestling with this, like I should perhaps shove my joy in hope into a cupboard and tell it to keep quiet, (no one wants to hear you right now) and Suppress it so that maybe the suffering around can touch me more profoundly, but I can’t seem to take my eyes off the one who appears to be sleeping at the helm. I’m only able to motion to those in the water, let His mother help you into the boat, for any moment now He will awake.
Jesus replied, ‘Have I not told you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?’
