Feasts and Family

Rublev’s “Trinity” © 2012 Mary van Balen
Originally published in the Catholic Times

We ended the Easter season with the wonderful feast of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Spirit that continues throughout all time. The entrance into Ordinary Time reminds me of Fourth of July’s fireworks finale. The impressionistic splattering of night sky with color, pattern, and smoke has ended and you begin to pick up your blanket or fold up your chairs when suddenly spheres of intense brightness light up smoke trails left in the sky and deep booms vibrate through to the bottoms of your feet. A last hurrah. Feasts pile up like that these weekends: Pentecost, Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi. Not Easter, exactly, but the glory and mystery of Easter threading through life as it does all year.

Sunday we celebrated our God who is family, relationship, and love. I always think of Rublev’s famous icon written around 1410. It depicts three angels at table, the three angles who visited Abraham at the oak of Mamre, but is often interpreted to represent the Trinity. The table has an empty place at the front, an invitation to come, sit down, and be part of the family. Easter leaking through. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and sending of the Spirit who dwells in each of us. We are not strangers to this divine Family; we belong, related through our brother, Jesus.

Then comes the feast of Corpus Christi, celebrating the Eucharist. We owe this feast in great part to St. Juliana, a nun of Liege, Belgium, who had a great devotion to the Eucharist and was the driving force behind the establishment of the commemoration. She was an interesting figure, having been elected as prioress of a double monastery (Common in the Middle Ages, such a monastery combined a section for monks and one for nuns, both united under one superior, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman.)

I, too, love this feast as I love Holy Thursday liturgy that celebrates the Last Supper and the first Eucharist. Corpus Christi liturgy often incorporates a procession. Once, a Trappist friend gave a large photographic book providing glimpses into the Abbey of Gethsemani, and one of my favorite photos was of this procession. In my memory it includes flowers strewn along the aisles bringing the earth into the ritual that remembers that the Holy One who created all became one with us, and continues to nourish our souls through ordinary food that feeds the body.

Easter again. Jesus lived a human life that included joys, sorrows, suffering, and death. He showed us the wonder of such a life when it is infused with the Spirit, with love and relationship with Divinity. Indeed, he showed us what human life was made to be and invited us to live it deeply and authentically, giving us what we need to do so.

Yesterday, I saw a movie that reflected a bit of this mystery: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. A number of British retirees decide to “outsource” their retirement to India where living is less expensive despite the exotic surroundings. As you might imagine, the reality is less glamorous than the slick brochures indicated and, well, life unfolds in unexpected ways.

Images and soundtrack filled the screen in an endless parade of vibrant colors, unfamiliar languages, music, dusty roads, glorious buildings, poverty, and lots and lots of people. And Spirit. And family. And love. Was it grasped? Was it celebrated? Were the surprised retirees open to such drastic change? Did they have eyes to see? Ears to hear?

The same questions apply to anyone, wherever she might be. They apply to us. As these glorious feasts remind us, the Divine dwells within us; the Holy fills not only breathtakingly beautiful places, but also decaying cities, office buildings, and crowded highways. Marginalized and poor people have gifts to share at least equal to those offered by the “successful” and wealthy. Our world offers opportunities for serving, for celebrating, for weeping and for laughing. The Trinity offers us a place at the table. Once we pull up a chair and sit down, we are immersed in all the mess and glory of the huge family that is the people of God…that is all of us.

These feasts remind us that we have been given what we need to respond. We have the capacity to enjoy and to serve. Are we open to receive, to participate? Like the British retirees discovered, it is really up to us.