Palm Sunday

I was asked to be part of the team who was reading the Gospel this morning. I usually get the crowd or one of the smaller parts and I wasn't expecting today to be any different.

We gathered a little early before Mass and the usual crew were assembled, and we welcomed the lone newcomer amongst us. Our young Jesuit Rector then started to hand out the "scripts", and we were all astonished to find that our usual assignments had been quite shuffled around. I looked at mine in disbelief for I was reading the part of Jesus.

I protested in shock that I couldn't do this. Why not? Asked Father Rector.

I didn't really have a good answer except that a woman Jesus seemed a bit odd. Crisply I was told that I was exactly what he wanted for the job so would I please just get on with it.

So I did.

But I can tell you that for me it is one thing to hear those sacred words and entirely another to proclaim them from the centre of the altar. I heard in a new way Jesus's dignity under trial, his compassion for the women of Jerusalem and the thief dying next to him, and the great gift of his forgiveness and finally his faith in commending his spirit to the Father.

Hours later the words I spoke aloud, familiar and oft heard still echo within me in a new way, in a depth that I have not before experienced.

Death watch

I have been visiting the hospital where my good friend and therapist lies dying. She had a stroke last Friday and has slid into a coma since. Today I am bemused by the conventional wisdom being bandied around that she cannot let go, and the not so silent urging by some of her many friends that her time is done and it is alright to let to and pass from this life.

I sat quietly in a corner this afternoon, my own need to sit with my friend over ridden by the stream of visitors all driven by the same desire. I watched for the while I was there and wondered if I had known the same person as so many of the other visitors who were so distressed at her lingering in life after a fashion.

To me it seems as if she is moving purposefully in her own time and own way toward the end of her life. This is a liminal time, not a pause governed by fear or uncertainty. I wonder if I knew a different person perhaps, one whom I cannot imagine shrinking from what is to come. Working with her, and knowing her as I did she was always purposeful, sometimes eyewateringly so. Her timing might have on occasions been quite different from mine, but again it was always purposeful. I simply can not see her abandoning the habits of a lifetime now.

Whatever the truth of the matter I shall not know as she is unlikely to regain consciousness so instead I continue to pray for light in her darkness and courage for the final journey and peace in her ending.