If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
-John 13: 14

Even you, the non-Catholic, non-believer (are there believers reading my blog?) probably know that there are Catholics, and then there are Catholics. The Sunday Masses will be populated by both types, but at weekday Masses, you'll only find the Catholics. That's me, I'm Catholic. It's funny to think of, really. I've become fervent. Hey, I'm not crazy!

I can't even imagine what my in-laws are thinking.

We have entered into the most holy period of the liturgical year - the Sacred Triduum - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil. I was at the Mass tonight. Perhaps I would not have gone, but Father asked me to take part in the sacramental ritual of the washing of the feet. I don't know why he chose me, of all people, to symbolize one of the apostles (we had 6 - a round number - and who wants to symbolize Judas anyway?), but it has been an incredibly humbling experience. I can't quite put it to words, but I am grateful.

I was the last person in the line to have my feet washed, which meant that after my turn, I should then trade places with Father, and wash his feet. But he seemed suddenly taken by some emotion and whispered to me you don't have to wash my feet. But I had to press, emphatic: I will. Then he whispered, because he is excellent, here, of all places!

It was funny, but it is such a rich symbol and intimate gesture, that it was imbued with profundity as well. Father has a very deep scar on his leg, from a car accident that nearly took his life a year ago. I considered our frailty. I considered that here I am, washing the feet of a holy man. I am the disciple. The ritual becomes larger than me, or Father, or even our time. The rituals allow our transcendence. I feel this more and more often, and each time, I am near weeping.

I'll return tomorrow for the Good Friday Mass, and then the Saturday Easter Vigil will be all important for us. I'll become a confessed, confirmed Catholic. Louison will be baptized too. I feel so certain, it all seems so right. I'm really thrilled.

You are to be commended for your faith and preserverance, in a world that is so caught up in materialism and the here and now that they forget to count their blessings, it is a true gift that you except and beleive in the superior being. Hold on to your faith it is a most precious guide that will never fail as long as you beleive. Happy Easter to you all.

Je suis très touchée par ton engagement et te souhaite de très joyeuses Pâques. Je t'embrasse.

Je suis très touchée par ton engagement et te souhaite de très joyeuses Pâques. Je t'embrasse.

I don't often run across people who come as adults to Catholicism, though one always hears that adult converts are the most fervent of supplicants.
I've just come from a film about the life of Simone Weil who, you may know, converted to Catholicism as an adult. Her story is so moving.

I once left a Holy Week service in which there was washing of feet because I felt ashamed to have someone do that to me, though I was honored to do it to the person before me. I know that that is the gift, to be so humble, but I was at that time unable. Thank you for sharing that story.

To my mind, one of the greatest Roman Catholics in this country was in the midwest: Dorothy Day.

May your faith enrich you and those around you always.

Peace --

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