Some 6th Sunday After Easter Thoughts To Start the Week Off Right
Hard to believe, but Pentecost Sunday arrives next week. The Easter Season 2020 is thus drawing to a close.
Now, under normal circumstances, the swift passage of time doesn't - or shouldn't surprise us. But in our C-virus World, this swift passage has been amped up. Many folks have alluded to this phenomenon in recent weeks in the course of my work.
One retired gentleman remarked that he had just settled into somewhat of a leisurely pace after his recent cessation of full-time work when the current mess, well, messed all that up. His days have been flying by and the formerly relaxed pattern has turned into more of a bum's rush. He'll survive, of course. But it's been somewhat disconcerting.
While I'm still in the throes of an active work life, my perception of the length of a day has also been altered. Almost every workday barely supplies an adequate slug of time to handle the tasks at hand. My occasional respites for reading or listening to music to freshen up for the day's workflow have grown few and far between.
I think a big part of the days now flashing by has to do with the extraordinarily lengthy process that characterizes every sojourn outside the home. You take a break to run some necessary chore and it begins: Get out your mask, keep your distance from others (which can slow you down), disinfect everything when you get home - including yourself - and you've just turned what was once a quick jump out of the office and back again into something akin to a major military exercise, with planning and debriefing included.
Then there's staying in touch with family and friends - a sine qua non of our C-virus World. While none of ours have been infected by the virus - at least not as far as we know - you don't want to let too much time pass if you haven't heard from a child living outside the home, or dear friends who haven't popped you and email in over a week.
What about you? Are your days flying by too?
In its own perverse way, for me this C-virus World of ours has helped restore Sunday to what it was designed to be: a day of rest. If that's true for most of us, that's a good thing. Sunday hasn't been Sunday for too many of us for many years now. It's been absorbed into a never-ending flow of one-day-into-the-next. At best, it's just part of "the weekend." But that's changed now. At least that's the case in our household.
While we've tried to keep Sunday Sunday, we've not always been successful. But now it's almost mandatory - from a purely practical standpoint - to make sure we get some slug of quiet, peaceful time so we can refresh and restore our minds and bodies for the blizzard of the coming six days.
And in the course of the respite that Sunday has brought lately, I've "magically" found more time to devote to God. After all, we can't get to Mass. So if we're "watching" a Mass at home, there's been a tendency to stick with God after Mass is over.
It's not like going to a live Mass. (Remember that?) There, you get up aand leave the church once Mass ends. On the way home, maybe you pick up a few items. Once you're home again - if you didn't stop for breakfast outside the home with the family - God didn't necessarily take center stage. Maybe you were expecting visitors for brunch or dinner. Maybe they were expecting you. Then - for some of us - live sports might take up a chunk of the day.
Those are but small slices of the activities and preoccupations that have typically dominated Sundays for many of us for decades now. The idea of Sunday as "The Lord's Day" has become something to which we mostly pay lip service. But for some of us that's changing now.
Will the change stick?
Maybe it's wishful thinking. But if God wills it, it shall be!
Of course, each of us can resolve to make Sunday Sunday again. I don't think God will object.
I'm praying now that God grants me the grace to keep Sunday as I should have kept it all along.
Now, under normal circumstances, the swift passage of time doesn't - or shouldn't surprise us. But in our C-virus World, this swift passage has been amped up. Many folks have alluded to this phenomenon in recent weeks in the course of my work.
One retired gentleman remarked that he had just settled into somewhat of a leisurely pace after his recent cessation of full-time work when the current mess, well, messed all that up. His days have been flying by and the formerly relaxed pattern has turned into more of a bum's rush. He'll survive, of course. But it's been somewhat disconcerting.
While I'm still in the throes of an active work life, my perception of the length of a day has also been altered. Almost every workday barely supplies an adequate slug of time to handle the tasks at hand. My occasional respites for reading or listening to music to freshen up for the day's workflow have grown few and far between.
I think a big part of the days now flashing by has to do with the extraordinarily lengthy process that characterizes every sojourn outside the home. You take a break to run some necessary chore and it begins: Get out your mask, keep your distance from others (which can slow you down), disinfect everything when you get home - including yourself - and you've just turned what was once a quick jump out of the office and back again into something akin to a major military exercise, with planning and debriefing included.
Then there's staying in touch with family and friends - a sine qua non of our C-virus World. While none of ours have been infected by the virus - at least not as far as we know - you don't want to let too much time pass if you haven't heard from a child living outside the home, or dear friends who haven't popped you and email in over a week.
What about you? Are your days flying by too?
In its own perverse way, for me this C-virus World of ours has helped restore Sunday to what it was designed to be: a day of rest. If that's true for most of us, that's a good thing. Sunday hasn't been Sunday for too many of us for many years now. It's been absorbed into a never-ending flow of one-day-into-the-next. At best, it's just part of "the weekend." But that's changed now. At least that's the case in our household.
While we've tried to keep Sunday Sunday, we've not always been successful. But now it's almost mandatory - from a purely practical standpoint - to make sure we get some slug of quiet, peaceful time so we can refresh and restore our minds and bodies for the blizzard of the coming six days.
And in the course of the respite that Sunday has brought lately, I've "magically" found more time to devote to God. After all, we can't get to Mass. So if we're "watching" a Mass at home, there's been a tendency to stick with God after Mass is over.
It's not like going to a live Mass. (Remember that?) There, you get up aand leave the church once Mass ends. On the way home, maybe you pick up a few items. Once you're home again - if you didn't stop for breakfast outside the home with the family - God didn't necessarily take center stage. Maybe you were expecting visitors for brunch or dinner. Maybe they were expecting you. Then - for some of us - live sports might take up a chunk of the day.
Those are but small slices of the activities and preoccupations that have typically dominated Sundays for many of us for decades now. The idea of Sunday as "The Lord's Day" has become something to which we mostly pay lip service. But for some of us that's changing now.
Will the change stick?
Maybe it's wishful thinking. But if God wills it, it shall be!
Of course, each of us can resolve to make Sunday Sunday again. I don't think God will object.
I'm praying now that God grants me the grace to keep Sunday as I should have kept it all along.
Happy Easter!
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