If a messiah speaks in the desert and no one hears him do you still have a religion?
So asks Lucky White Girl, an excellent writer, blogger, and all-around-human-being, in her thoughtful and personal reflection on Ash Wednesday (that's today, for those of us Recovering Catholics who forgot the day, like me) ~ she also includes T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday ~ here is an excerpt but check out the full posts at L.G.'s blog:
You know Ash Wednesday is not really a Holy Day of Obligation? It's true. You don't actually have to go to mass today. So I'm not. I'm not because I'm tired of it. I'm tired of going to masses and hearing terrible uninspired sermons filled with meaningless cliches and I'm tired of feeling alienated, angered that this ancient religion has turned 180 degrees and is now the religion of the rich who see no conflict between driving to church in their BMWs and listening to the 2,000 year old words of a crazy wild eyed radical impoverished social outcast messiah of the 1st century. And yes, it's true that the beauty of the communion, the body of Christ, is still apparent to me and can never cease to be so no matter how flawed we 21st century humans may be, as everyone lines up and despite everything --despite nuclear war and mass murder and slavery and ethnic hatred and colonization-- despite everything terrible that we have done, we go anyway up to the altar --we are not worthy, Lord, but only say the word, only say the word-- and despite everything we eat the body of Christ and try again.
Hope is revolutionary. And I am in love with the revolution.
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