Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
May 19, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051923.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings suggest a slight tone of “the after-Ascension” blues.

It’s a bit like how we might feel on the day after Christmas. The big celebration has come and gone. The company has all gone home. Maybe we’re exhausted from the preparations and clean-ups. Maybe we had been so busy that we didn’t take enough time to think about the meaning of the Feast. Maybe we feel like we’ve been spun around in time’s tumbler and can’t believe it’s now the end of the year. It’s a “what do we do next?” time when we come out of a flurry and need to get our bearings.

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And for the disciples, it’s a morning they wake up and realize that Jesus has really gone home. In an otherwise chilly room, they might linger in their cozy cots reflecting on his parting words:

Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived;
but when she has given birth to a child,
she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy
that a child has been born into the world.
So you also are now in anguish.
But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.

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These very special days between the Ascension and Pentecost offer the perfect time to quiet our spirits and get our spiritual bearings. Unlike the video of the deer above, it is a time to stop the spin, to clear the inner space, to ready ourselves for the promised and longed-for Spirit.

It’s a time not to be afraid of the silence or the echoing space deep in our hearts which longs for the presence of God.

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Even if we are still in the midst of our busy lives, we can make a choice to be on “inner retreat” – to limit useless noise, directionless activity, and mumifying distractions.

If we have forgotten how to sit quietly enough to hear the wind and the distant meadowlark, let’s try to remember. Let’s try to make an inner chamber for the whisper of God Who hums through these ten days until bursting forth in Pentecost.

This decade of hours is a very special time to pray.

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Poetry: excerpt from Sara Teasdale’s poem “Silence” (I love her archaic British term “anhungered“)

We are anhungered after solitude,
Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,
Soft quiet hovering over pools profound,
The silences that on the desert brood,
Above a windless hush of empty seas,
The broad unfurling banners of the dawn,
A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun;
Our souls are fain of solitudes like these.

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and a second brief but powerful verse from Emily Dickinson:

Silence is all we dread.
There’s Ransom in a Voice –
But Silence is Infinity.
Himself have not a face.

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Music: Achtsamkeit (German for “Mindfulness”) this is an hour’s worth of beautiful music. You can tap into various parts of the video to hear different pieces.