Keeping watch with Jesus--unexpectedly

Memorial to the Japanese martyrs of Unzen. (Photo by Connie Rossini.)

This is the week for keeping watch with Jesus in a special way. Although God calls us to spend time with Him in prayer daily, we rightly feel that we should spend extra time with Him during Holy Week. But how should we go about it?

When I was a teenager, my family started a tradition of an all-night prayer vigil on Holy Thursday. Beginning at 10 p.m., my parents, siblings, and I took turns praying in one or two one-hour slots for the next eight hours. I loved offering this extra sacrifice to Jesus, this extra sign of love. Jesus would not be alone in the Garden of Gethsemane if I could help it.

After I graduated from college, I spent two years as a lay missionary in Japan, teaching English to support the evangelization work of an American priest. During spring break of the first year, my roommate Mary Beth and I traveled to the island of Kyushu. We planned to be in Nagasaki for Easter.

On Holy Thursday we were in the resort town of Unzen. Known for its hot springs, in which the Japanese bathe for health, Unzen is also the site of mass martyrdoms in the 17th century. In one of the most heinous instances of torture in history,  Japanese officials hung Catholics upside-down to slowly roast over the hot springs. They punctured holes in the martyrs’ foreheads, so that the rush of blood to their heads would not kill them prematurely.


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Family and homeschool activities for the rest of Lent

Ready to celebrate the rest of Lent as a family? Here are several activities you can do together, whether or not you homeschool.

p=suitable for grades 1-3
m=suitable for grades 4-6
j=suitable for grades 7-9
s=suitable for grades 10-12

 Books

Besides reading the Gospel accounts of Holy Week, try reading and discussing the following books that deal with sacrifice, martyrdom, or resurrection:

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (p).
The Tale of Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt (p+).
The Queen and the Cross: The Story of St. Helen by Cornelia Mary Bilinsky (p, m)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (p+ for reading aloud; m+ for independent reading).


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You can't lose, unless you give up

How is your Lent going? Did you accidentally eat meat today? Did you give in and eat chocolate, drink coffee, or indulge in whatever else you promised to give up? Have you missed your prayer time, slept through daily Mass, or skipped your spiritual reading?

Don't despair. This could still be your best Lent yet.

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Meditation for Ash Wednesday

Fingernails scrubbed clean as latrines
in the army, this symbol
of a man dirties his thumb
with our skin, the powdery ash riding high
on his pores, not sinking in
before he sketches the gray
of our dirt-birth across a brow
we were born to furrow.

Listen to the sound of forgiveness:
the crossing of skin, the cult-
like queuing up to explode
in ripped whispers, “Lord,
have mercy, Lord, have
mercy, Lord, have mercy.”

And we want it. And we take it
home with us to stare back
from a lover’s forehead,
to come off in a smear on the sheets
as we roll onto each other’s skin,
or to wear like a bindhi this medal of our not winning
each day we wake to the worlds
we are and are not.

And when we wake too early
before the light of just-becoming-day
sneaks in on us, and we stand lonely, deceived
into piety, scrubbing away the grime of our humanness
like fierce fierce toothbrushes on latrines
in the army, there it is still,
raw with our washings:
the human beneath.

Fine-tune your spiritual focus for Lent

Did you choose a specific virtue to cultivate for a New Years' resolution? Try making a concrete step in that direction a focus for Lent, which starts tomorrow.

In January, I wrote how I was working on trust this year. I've been practicing trusting God when I sin, following the example of St. Therese. It's becoming routine. I can't tell you how much freer I feel. When I have a bad day of yelling at my kids or otherwise being selfish, I no longer beat myself (figuratively speaking) over it.  I trust God to take care of it, and even to bless me (not because of my sin, but because of my trust).  My faith is stronger as well.

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