The weather! It’s crazy!

My first Extraordinary Form mass was on a similarly hot day exactly three years ago, on the external solemnity of Corpus Christi. I’m sure I was impressed by the missal (then the St Edmund Campions from CC Watershed). I’m sure I geeked out over Lauda Sion, and St Thomas Aquinas, and whoa, Latin. I’m sure that something in all that incensing and standing and sitting took root in me. But what I remember this day for was not really any of these things.

Somehow we had joined the procession, despite being quite lost and not all Catholic. We traipsed out the church and into the car park to make the one round of the compound. Every so often the priest (in his cope and all!) would stop and everyone would stop and everyone would kneel, right there, on the hot, sharp asphalt. For a split second, I looked down at the road and thought, yikes, maybe not–then I saw one old lady after another (and uncles too) drop to their knees, however gingerly, without complaint. If they can do it, so can I, surely.

Looking back, I am grateful for the silent witness of those whose pain tolerance impressed me that afternoon, and for the grand and silent Incarnation that they were venerating. May each year bring us all deeper and deeper into the Heart of Jesus, and into the mystery of His Love.