Lent at St. Victor's: "Will You Watch an Hour with Me?"

I remember that when I used to visit my dad, he'd often comment that I looked antsy, that I always seemed eager to be somewhere else. He took it as evidence of some reservation I had about our relationship. Perhaps so, and if so, the subject of a psychological analysis for another time. What was also, and I thought, primarily true, is that I am antsy, everywhere. It is hard for me to sit still anywhere, without a flash through my mind of things to be done, whether they need doing or not.

So, dad would often hear, "I gotta go" after I'd been at his place for a bit.



Lent began on Wednesday. Tonight, as I tried to sit for just one hour before the Blessed Sacrament, as Jesus wished his disciples to do without sleeping as he prayed in terror in Gethsemane for what He was about to experience on the Cross, I remembered how I was with dad. Sitting an hour with our Lord felt impossible. I closed my eyes. I prayed. I shifted my position in the pew endlessly. I had neither watch nor cell phone and it seemed that the minutes were an actual burden. I wanted to leave. All that kept me was the image of Our Lord, a "stone's throw" from his friends and unattended to by them, wrapped up in their images of what He should be.

I decided not to make any promises about what I will do during this Lent as demonstration of my willingness to flow in His footsteps, because truth be told, I'd rather be anywhere else than following in THOSE footsteps which lead to torment and death. But then, I remember, they lead to something beyond that, to transformation, to sanctification, of suffering itself. Follow. Yes, the pain will still be there. It is there whether you follow or not. But IF you follow, if you watch with Me, from the Cross emanates the Light. It is the Light of Paradise, once lost, now found again, because you, Djinn, trusted, just enough, so as not to walk away from Me and my ultimate sacrifice for you. You stayed, for an hour, at least.