Friday
It’s Friday during Lent, the Friday before Passion Sunday, and First Friday. It’s time for the Stations of the Cross. We’ve just celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and now Father makes his way out of the sacristy. He will read the prayers and meditations from the ambo as the cross-bearer will make his way from station to station. We, the faithful, shall genuflect, stand, and kneel as is prescribed from the pews in our small chapel.
The scenery gets blurry from the water welling up in my eyes as I hear the meditations of how much my Lord and His Mother (and mine) suffered for me with a love we miserable worms cannot comprehend. I hear how my sins have caused this loving God-man to suffer so much and take my sins and the sins of the whole world upon his shoulders. Then suddenly, I was given an incredible grace: My hands folded in prayer, I felt the newly acquired ring on my finger, which caused a flood of memories to come to mind. I recall how, in the past, I would be out drinking and partying at some place or another on many a Friday night, at the casinos and the gay bars I frequented as a young to mid-adult.
This ring was bequeathed to me by my uncle and belonged to my grandmother. A grandmother that I never got to know because I never made an effort to know her. I’d never visit her and rarely think of her until shortly before she passed—a grandma I love and pray for every day in Holy Mass.
I remember how, at one time, I wore a ring on that finger that I’d bought at Cartier; one bought cash from some poker tournament I’d won. I’d later lose this ring, being too drunk one night to remember to put it back on my finger after washing my hands. How filthier my soul than my hands during that period of my life. The one I wear tonight is much more valuable because it is more meaningful. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and awe at how much God’s grace has turned my life right side up. Yes, I still carry my cross as I make the Stations, but this cross is my ladder to Heaven if I persevere. And then I say within myself, “There’s no better way to spend a Friday night than here where I am, doing what I’m doing.” And so goes the life of someone who loves the God-man and His mother, showing them that I’m willing to make atonement for my past sins. Here, at my little chapel, gaining an Indulgence afforded me by God’s Mystical Body on earth, the Church. The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Deo gratias!
