Good morning, Digital Neighbors!
The weeks keep rolling along and another Friday and its Stations of the Cross & Fish Fry is upon us. A few years ago, in our local Archdiocesan paper a person wrote a very pointed letter about those two realities. He or she lamented that while we get hundreds of people to attend Fish Fries and pay for their meals, next to none want to come pray free of cost at the Stations. Feeding our belly is a far greater priority than feeding our soul. I get the point and will come back to that a bit down the line. But first, Fish Fries!
Fish Fries are not a bad thing at all. There is so much good that comes from them. For individual parishes it is a way to build community and raise funds, for those outside the parish it is a communal service that helps parishes raise funds. The community building that happens among the volunteers is one of the best things that happens at fish fries. It often allows a cross section of a parish to better know one another in their mutual service. It is an oddity of parish life that some parishioners may never meet one another because they go to separate Masses. Years can pass without them ever meeting in church even if they may incidentally know of each other apart from their association of the parish. Some things just don’t happen to come up in conversations, especially matters of faith or worship since we tend to be more private about it. Fish Fries and other volunteering opportunities allow actual neighbors, separated by lack of awareness and different Mass times, to know each other. The fish is usually pretty good too. If it is not, word get out and patrons go elsewhere. Within half-an-hour drive there are dozens of fish fries in the St. Louis area, I don’t know about elsewhere, but there is a thriving fish fry culture here during Lent.
Feeding the body is a necessity, so is feeding the soul even if we don’t readily recognize it. The hunger is there lurking in our imagination, prompting our wonder and questions about this experience of life. Nature and the arts can awaken it, this soul-seeking mixed with soul-ache either has a point or person of fulfillment or it is a cruel trick of reality to awaken in us the desire with no fulfillment. The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible wrestles with this reality. Is life nothing but vanity (emptiness, not conceitedness) and a chase after the wind or is there something more? The author relates different attempts to find meaning with each still resulting in vain results and dissatisfaction. People of faithful pursuance have an answer. People marginally associated with faith have an answer but suffer distractions, obsession with self or just surrender to sin and a sense of this is how it is. The sense of “this is how is” is often a lie. There is a better life in seeking a Higher Power, this is a better life sorting through all the humanity to find the Divine. Our souls want to be fed and it stirs within us. It will be fed one way or another even if we feed it with spiritual garbage and placating substitutes. Much of modern life has currently elected for this horrible spiritual diet.
St. Francis gave the gift of the Stations of the Cross to the church. I guess it would be more fitting to say God gave it to us through Him, but either way that joyful Friar invited us to use our imagination and grow in love with our God. We might not be able to go to Jerusalem to walk the Via Dolorosa, but we can go there in prayer and imagination. We can pray, observe, and contemplate what it is all about and hopefully grow in love with our God. Today was going to be a punt, but the rambling begins, and the babbling follows. Happy Friday my good neighbor! Enjoy your fish fry, but don’t forget to feed your soul. It might be something explicitly religious like the Stations, a Rosary or reading Scripture, or it might be less explicit like listening to good music, appreciating nature, or coming across an occasion of beauty and joy. Somewhere in our interior chamber a humble Prescence is waiting and longing for communion with us.
There is a longing in our Hearts - Here are the lyrics of the song:-
Refrain: There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord,
for you to reveal yourself to us.
There is a longing in our hearts
for love we only find in you, our God.
1. For justice, for freedom,
for mercy, hear our prayer.
In sorrow, in grief,
be near, hear our prayer, O God.
Refrain: There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord,
for you to reveal yourself to us.
There is a longing in our hearts
for love we only find in you, our God.
2. For wisdom, for courage,
for comfort, hear our prayer.
In weakness, in fear,
be near, hear our prayer, O God.
Refrain: There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord,
for you to reveal yourself to us.
There is a longing in our hearts
for love we only find in you, our God.
3. For healing, for wholeness,
for new life, hear our prayer.
In sickness, in death,
be near, hear our prayer, O God.
Refrain: There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord,
for you to reveal yourself to us.
There is a longing in our hearts
for love we only find in you, our God.
4. Lord save us, take pity,
light in our darkness.
We call you, we wait,
be near, hear our prayer, O God.
Final Refrain: There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord,
for you to reveal yourself to us.
There is a longing in our hearts
for love we only find in you, our God.
