Christ is Risen!

Beautiful Sunday of Sundays, today was the first Easter in many years that I have had the freedom to choose where to go for an Easter service. In years past, I have had worship-team-related committments--some of which have been exciting and fun, some of which have been extremely burdensome. I remember last Easter, when the production was so heartachingly depressing that two straight services of it (plus listening to morning run-throughs) would drive a saint to drink!

What lovely freedom, then, today. My heart led me in the direction of the high church variety: mass at Holy Family downtown, to be precise. The cathedral is a vision of aesthetic loveliness: high, vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, a pipe organ, an incredible ivory sculture (including the crucifix) up front. The choirs were superb; the organist...beyond incredible. There were moments, during the Latin choral pieces, where if I closed my eyes, I was transported to the Middle Ages. And oh, if only you could have felt the entire cathedral vibrate and reverberate with the strength and power of the organ and choir in the last verse of "Christ the Lord has Risen Today!"

Yet while the music itself was well worth the visit, the most significant part for me was the reverance of the liturgy. A rejection of sin. An affirmation of faith. A proclamation of joy in the resurrection. At once a connection among a community of believers worldwide. As a Protestant--a non-denominational one at that--this is something I feel like I have missed all my life, though I've scarcely recognized it.

Crossing myself with the holy water, kneeling in prayer, singing melodies that echoed through the ages, I half-wondered what it would be like to be Catholic.

How long does it take before the scent of incense evaporates from your nostrils? At what point does this all become commonplace? (I know it does.) And is this the case with any church, any form of worship? Do we simply get so caught up in the doing that we miss the divine?

I rather wonder what the curly-headed child felt, blasted wide-eyed as a wayward drop of water crashed into his face, equally touched as it were by the weight of its symbolism and the love in his mother's hand as she wiped the excess from his cheek.