May 7

Up in a high cupboard, wrapped carefully, we have a sacred vessel. My mother-in-law bought a ceramic plate with a loaves-and-fishes mosaic motif on a trip to Israel in 1996, and the priest who was leading her tour group used it in a Mass. She gave it to us at Christmastime that year. Having been used in Mass, the plate can never be used for another purpose. It has followed us through all of our moves-- carefully wrapped, tucked away for safekeeping.

I miss the Mass so much. Yesterday I was thinking about that vessel, and I imagined taking it down from its high shelf and unwrapping it -- pressing it to my cheek as a way to get a whisker closer to the sacrament. (That's going to sound weird to the non-Catholic people who read this blog.) I think every day about going to our Adoration chapel and pressing my nose against the window. 

Back in Lent my friend Veronica told me about another local parish that's doing parking lot Adoration and confession in the afternoons. I tried to go once, but the lot was full and I couldn't figure out how confessions worked. Was there a line? Did everyone else besides me understand the workings of the line? Today I thought to myself, "You know, you could probably figure this out if you went back."

They put a monstrance in a window, with a sign below it that says "Ecce." There was a priest hearing confessions inside a makeshift booth with heavy green curtains, and after I watched and waited for a while and overcame a measure of inner resistance, I made my way over. It's a weird thing to do, to confess loudly enough to be heard over the traffic on a busy street. Was it okay to stand right next to the curtain? Should I stand further back and confess more loudly? How much virus can make its way through a heavy green curtain if a person on one side is infected? At one point the priest said, "Just a minute, I'll finish my thought after this car passes by."

But OOOHHHH I am glad I did it. It had been three months since anyone spoke the words of absolution over me, and I walked away feeling light and free and grateful. I knelt down in front of the monstrance, right there in the parking lot, and wiped away a few tears.