"The Trials & Tribulations of this Time"

Momma ... this morning, this is what I read at your grave:

"Because there are these two periods of time – the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy – we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of the Alleluia we sing.Both these periods are represented and demonstrated for us in Christ our head. The Lord’s passion depicts for us our present life of trial – shows how we must suffer and be afflicted and finally die. The Lord’s resurrection and glorification show us the life that will be given to us in the future." http://www.universalis.com/20080426/readings.htm

St Augustine raises what to me is both most appealing and most foreign about the two liturgical seasons. And I know that both are really at the heart of our Walk in Christ aren't they. For Holy Saturday really spans both doesn't it.

But the first liturgical season ... commemorating the "trials and tribulations of this life" .. that much at least makes sense to me as much as anything makes sense at a gut, feeling level. A life full of trial & tribulation; a life full of horror and pain and suffering; a life stripped of my Momma ... this is a life that to that extent at least seems consistent ... consistent in its devastation and despair ... a life that is Job ... a life that is Ecclesiastes ...

The other life ... the life to come ... the life we celebrate indeed in speaking the Easter Alleluia to one another ... that is a life that I acknowledge by faith but it resonates no where inside me except perhaps indeed at a level I cannot begin to fathom.

But St Augustine emphasizes the longings that are part and parcel of this time of trial & tribulation. That makse sense to me. Whatever is not, whatever is absent, whatever, that is, I want at some level ... that is what I long for daily, hourly, minute by minute, whether I know it or not.

O Lord

O Momma

O God may that we long for become indeed what we gain by Your Grace alone in Your Time

Ascension approaches ... full of promise ... full of announcement of fulfillment of our longings ...

But Ascension is not here yet

So we long and long and need and long for you and alll that You mean for us O Lord

O God I need you so

I love you

I love you

I need you so

Charles Delacroix
Eve of 6th Sunday in Eastertide