This has been a messed-up Lent and now we’re headed for a
messed-up Pascha. There’s no other way to say it. I have been frustrated by a
lack of sources of inspiration for how to deal with a Lent and Pascha like this
one, stuck at home, not going to church, not going to Communion. Most years as
Pascha is approaching, people start sharing “Pascha in Dachau,” a first-hand
account by an Orthodox prisoner in a German concentration camp liberated a few
days before Pascha in 1945. It’s an inspiring story of coming together to celebrate
the Resurrection no matter what the conditions. Greek, Serb and Russian priests
and monks turned towels in to vestments and sang the Paschal Matins from
memory. Most years that story gives me chills with how amazing it was, but this
year not so much. And the problem isn’t who had it worse (they, obviously) but’s
it feels like an apples-and-oranges comparison, with me feeling like an ugly,
lonely turnip. A theme of coming together no matter what doesn’t help much in a
year when your priest and bishop are telling you to stay home no matter what,
no “heroes” allowed to “tough it out,” as they’re warning that the church’s
liability insurance could be revoked if we hold a gathering and then we would
lose the property to a lawsuit if the bug went around.
So what are we, recluses and hermits? No, monks are only
allowed to engage in that kind of struggle after years in their monasteries and
only under the supervision of the abbot.
Are we catacombs Christians? During long services, I used to
look around at other parishioners and wonder how many of us would stick with it
if we were persecuted, put to flight. I looked over them and thought some
pretty judgmental thoughts: This recent immigrant is here for Old Country
nationalism, that new convert likes the priest who educated him but will be gone
the instant a new one is assigned. This woman, dressed up like she could host
Good Morning America is here to be the most stylish in church, that extrovert is
here because it’s fun to talk people’s ears off at coffee hour. Take away their
superficial reasons for coming to church and what’s left? In me, not much. I’ve
become despondent, having a difficult time praying, feeling darned grumpy about
being stuck in my cluttered bedroom watching services streamed on-line. I’d
make the worst catacombs Christian ever.
Are we disaster helpers? That’s one of the things that
helped establish the early church, that Christians fed people during famines
when the Romans had given up on them. In this disaster, shouldn’t we be
visiting the elderly, the sick? Three weeks ago, I called one of my college
professors, who’s retired and in his 80s. He spent the whole call trying to
convince me to come visit, but I kept saying, sorry, prof, I’m not supposed to,
that’s why you’re getting the phone call. Last week, his daughter died of COVID-19.
And I’m still not visiting, but sending flowers, hoping the FTD delivery person
wears a mask.
A statement I’ve seen go around on social media lately is “This
is the Lentiest Lent I’ve ever Lented,” which I don’t find inspiring at all. I’ve
been to church three times this Lent and haven’t been to one Liturgy of the
Presanctified Gifts. What were these people who call this “Lentiest” doing last
year, having rock concerts of 300 people on their front lawns on Sunday
mornings where people licked each other’s faces? No, this is a messed-up Lent
and a messed-up Pascha, and I’ve spent a long time trying to think of something
that compares.
And, I have, sort of, and that’s why I’ve written this
essay. And it’s this: Baptism is our personal Pascha (dying and rising again)
and Chrismation is our personal Pentecost (the gift of the Holy Spirit). And I
know someone who had a messed-up Baptism: my son. Born at 22 weeks and 6 days
of gestation and weighing 1 pound, 6 ounces, I baptized him myself with a
syringe of sterile water in the delivery room. I read the “Brief Form of
Baptism” from page 34 of the Small Book of Needs. It was the only time I’ve
baptized someone and I have ever since been worried I’d messed it up somehow.
There was no priest, no choir, no cake, no godparents, no special suit for the
baby. It was a messed-up personal Pascha.
And then the thing we had to look forward to was his Chrismation,
his personal Pentecost, which we knew would be many months away if it happened.
And in the meantime, there was no Communion for him. If he made it, we could
celebrate and have a cake, and dress him in a suit and have godparents.
I’m hopeful for some kind of change to the social distancing
rules over the next seven weeks so we can do something on Pentecost. Or for St.
John the Forerunner. Or Peter and Paul. Or Dormition. Or Exaltation of the Cross
(although that might not be as fun on a strict fast day). Or whenever it is that
darned “curve on the graph” starts to go down. But the point is we have to
stick it out to the end, whenever that might be.
Our son did eventually get to have his Chrismation, although
it took the priests a while to sort out the service order for an infant who’d
been baptized five months earlier. And now he’s an active reader and bicyclist,
proof that it is possible to have a messed-up Pascha and a good Pentecost.
