4/9/23

April 9, 2023

Easter

In bed at 9:30.up at 6, good night sleep with some CPP pss.  36℉ under clear skies, high near 60℉. summery dry weather ahead all week, wind SSW at 5 mph, 1 to 12 mph today with gusts up to 20 mph, Sunrise at 6:20, sunset at 7:27, 13+7.

Quiet Easter Sunday.  David, Sharon, and Ellis at John Celeik's house for an Easter egg hunt.  Andy, Anh, and the kids with the Hoany family.  We're at home with an Easter pot roast, a favorite treat.  I'm thinking of my Easter Triduum visit to Paris years ago, April 9th to April 16th, 1998: Holy Thursday mass at St. Germain de Pres, the Good Friday Passion services at St. Germain L'Auxerrois (afternoon) and at St. Sulpice (evening), Holy Saturday at St. Gervais-St. Protais in the afternoon and the solemn Easter vigil at Notre Dame, Easter morning services at St. Eustache, and other services at other churches.  I arrived without a hotel reservation and remember the hotel lady on the Champs Elysee reproved me and admonished me: "Monsieur, it's Easter!"  I ended up at the same hotel we'd stayed at on an earlier trip, L'hotel Rive Gauche, kind of a dump but perfectly suitable for my needs.

Facebook posting today.  "25 years ago today I was in Paris attending the Holy Thursday / Last Supper mass at the Abbey St. Germain de Pres.  It was the beginning of 4 days spent staying at a cheap hotel on the Left Bank and attending services at just about every church in central Paris, including the solemn Easter vigil mass at Notre Dame celebrated by Paris' Jewish Cardinal Aron Lustiger.  The liturgies were theatrical, dramatic, and affecting.  I filled 88 pages of a little pocket 100-page notebook with notes of my visit which I have occasion to read every now and then, including today.  I have always been affected by religious venues and by liturgies, illustrating I suppose that those who designed them accomplished their purpose.  I was struck by how many young people attended the services in supposedly secular France.  Three years after my visit, the Boston Globe started its investigation into childhood sexual abuse in the Boston Archdiocese and its efforts at cover-up.  How much has changed since then.  The extensive structural damage to Notre Dame Cathedral seems emblematic of the institutional damage to the Church.  I wonder today what differences if any I might see in the people in the pews during this Holy Week compared to 25 years ago.  I wonder especially if I would see as many young people in those pews.  Social scientists and pollsters tell us that church membership generally and among the young is declining, that increasingly the responses to questions asked about religious affiliation is "none" or "n/a."  One wonders whether this trend will reverse as the situation in the country and in the world becomes more ominous, or is traditional religion, including the evangelical and pentecostal varieties whose members skew old, becoming a sputtering flame.

St. Mike's multicultural community at 24th and Cherry Sts. is the lead story in this morning's JSOnline.  The story mentions its 'sister parish' St. Rose of Lima at 32nd and Michigan, Sts. but no mention of St. Francis of Assisi at 4th and Brown Sts.  Apparently, St. Francis has opted out of the multicultural trio or perhaps been ousted.  St. Francis was a member because of its African-American, Puerto Rican, and White membership, with weekly masses in English and in Spanish.  The Capuchin priests at St. Francis always chafed under the dominance of the diocesan pastor at St. Mike's whose name I can't recall, but he was a little bit of a bully with the meeker Caps.  I can't remember the ethnic mix at St. Mike's from those days, but it included Hispanic, White, and Hmong for sure, and also others.  My former law student Anne Bowie was a member.  How very long those masses at St. Mike's were with the liturgy recited in at least 3 separate languages!  Now according to the JSOnline story, the parish includes many Burmese members.  The story makes me miss the time I was a part of that large varied inner-city community.

WaPo:  New report outlines the deep political polarization’s slow and steady march:  Urban-rural division has grown dramatically over the past 25 years, according to data from the Cook Political Report.  Unstated: Dems identified by rural voters as the party of minorities, taking from Whites to give to Blacks and Browns.  Minorities, especially Blacks, identified with criminality, unemployment, irresponsible sex, fatherless homes, illicit drug use, gun violence, and most if not all of the social problems that generally beset American cities.

Homw by Marilynne Robinson.  I'm only on page 76 of 326 pages, 24% through it.  This is a deeply serious character study, mostly of Glory Broughton, but also of her father and her brother.  There is some mystery to it, the whats and the whys of what happened to both Glory and to Jack.  It keeps me turning the pages but I'm taken by the author's deep dive into the minds of the characters, her understanding of the mental and emotional processes they are going through.  Very little action in the story, much mind-reading.  What's the word I'm looking for?  Intrspection - your own mind, extrospection - another's mind?