Last Monday was my husband’s and my last night of RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults: Catholic membership classes, as it were). These have been one of the high points of my weeks, these last 9 months, the best sort of date night with my husband. I’ve shed more tears of joy and beauty in that class than I could’ve ever anticipated.
This, plus Ascension having just passed. My husband had taken Thursday off before we knew Ascension was transferred to Sunday in our diocese, so we joined some friends over in Lapeer for our first Tridentine Latin Mass, during which they Extinguished the Paschal Candle.
Bye, RCIA.
Bye, Jesus.
But the homily on Thursday proposed that Christ’s Ascension established our hope for our mortal bodies also being taken up into union with God forever; where the Head goes, the Body follows. The Incarnation was God Made Flesh here on Earth, and in the Ascension, Jesus goes to prepare a place for us, as a bridegroom builds his beloved a home where they will consummate their marriage. I always get a little squirmy with language like that, but heaven is described as the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, so I’ll just sit with that...
Plus, I’ve now lived through a symmetry: 40(ish) days of Lent I fasted and prepared for Easter; 40(ish) days now have I relished in almost-daily foretastes of the Feast to Come, Jesus himself!
And I feel somewhat a plateau. We’ve been generously taught and initiated by our parish, I’ve fallen off fasting through the Easter season, and the initial weeks-long high (which was almost unbearable at times) has dropped to a simmer.
My longing for a new outpouring of God’s Spirit is renewed, and as much as I’m mourning the end of RCIA and the departure of Jesus, he does not leave me abandoned (Jn 14:18). It is indeed “better for me” (Jn 16:7) that the Advocate come, that I go preach the Gospel, by the act of spreading the light, fanning the flame of my own love for God. I relished in slamming a quick couple days of fasting in, Thursday and Friday. Nothing like the hunger of the body putting a finer point on my hunger for God.
At St. Mary Williamston’s “Encounter” Adoration/Healing night a few weeks back, a woman prophesied that I should anticipate something at Pentecost. My husband and I had inadvertently planned a trip to the UP that weekend, but I think it’d be wise that I stay here in Jerusalem that day...
This, plus Ascension having just passed. My husband had taken Thursday off before we knew Ascension was transferred to Sunday in our diocese, so we joined some friends over in Lapeer for our first Tridentine Latin Mass, during which they Extinguished the Paschal Candle.
Bye, RCIA.
Bye, Jesus.
But the homily on Thursday proposed that Christ’s Ascension established our hope for our mortal bodies also being taken up into union with God forever; where the Head goes, the Body follows. The Incarnation was God Made Flesh here on Earth, and in the Ascension, Jesus goes to prepare a place for us, as a bridegroom builds his beloved a home where they will consummate their marriage. I always get a little squirmy with language like that, but heaven is described as the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, so I’ll just sit with that...
Plus, I’ve now lived through a symmetry: 40(ish) days of Lent I fasted and prepared for Easter; 40(ish) days now have I relished in almost-daily foretastes of the Feast to Come, Jesus himself!
And I feel somewhat a plateau. We’ve been generously taught and initiated by our parish, I’ve fallen off fasting through the Easter season, and the initial weeks-long high (which was almost unbearable at times) has dropped to a simmer.
My longing for a new outpouring of God’s Spirit is renewed, and as much as I’m mourning the end of RCIA and the departure of Jesus, he does not leave me abandoned (Jn 14:18). It is indeed “better for me” (Jn 16:7) that the Advocate come, that I go preach the Gospel, by the act of spreading the light, fanning the flame of my own love for God. I relished in slamming a quick couple days of fasting in, Thursday and Friday. Nothing like the hunger of the body putting a finer point on my hunger for God.
At St. Mary Williamston’s “Encounter” Adoration/Healing night a few weeks back, a woman prophesied that I should anticipate something at Pentecost. My husband and I had inadvertently planned a trip to the UP that weekend, but I think it’d be wise that I stay here in Jerusalem that day...
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