I spent over 31 years of my life as an active Roman Catholic. Although I have since come a separate way on my spiritual journey, with a different understanding of Scripture and theology, there are certain things I miss about being a practicing Catholic. One way I would contrast my "reformed protestant" spiritual life from my old Catholic spiritual life would be... My Protestant present is a college science course. My Catholic past was an art and music course. Of course I have aged as an adult, and I cannot possibly replicate many of the affections, passions, and facets of my earlier spiritual life. We get older and our hearts change.

Holy Week used to really stand out when I was Catholic. I remember so well, how special and holy (as in "set apart") this week always was for me. I loved the rituals associated with that time. I loved the palm branches of Palm Sunday; the Holy Thursday Mass and the washing of feet; the special and solemn Good Friday service, which is the only day of the year when Holy Eucharist is not celebrated; I remember my favorite Mass of the year was the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening after Good Friday. The blessing of the fire, the candlelight service, the multiple scripture readings, the catechumens joining the church. This was so special to me. I never forgot to abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent in those years. I remember all those Ash Wednesdays, signifying the holy season of Lent. There was something distinctive and wonderful about it (nowadays I scarcely even remember that it is the lenten season sometimes).

My life has this huge dichotomy... Chapter One meant New Jersey, Catholic, unmarried, both parents alive, and electrical engineering. This was roughly three decades. Chapter Two began... my mother in heaven, Florida, protestant, married, a mother of two, staying at home (eventually) and now homeschooling. All this to say that missing the old Catholic days is closely linked with missing my mom, and that whole other life. My mom taught me about being a good christian who was a good Catholic. From my present point of view, I don't know to this day exactly how my mom understood the gospel message, but I do know that she sincerely loved Christ. She birthed my childhood passion to joyfully "practice my religion", and later on this morphed into a different spirituality for me.

But being Catholic was very mystical, very spiritual, meditative, devotional, and it involved all my senses. It defined the way I felt and thought when I was young. It was Search weekends, folk Masses, and college retreats. It was my serving my church as their youngest ever Eucharistic Minister, at the age of 18. It was reading from the Lectern before the congregation. It was attending daily Mass with another engineer friend every weekday morning before reporting to work.

Now I understand things differently. It is more cerebral now, more mature. Definitely Older. It is commitment to Christ in a completely different form. It is a comprehension of the simple gospel that I never had when I was 18. But Holy Week....... well, it isn't quite the same as it was when I was Catholic.

One Holy Week devotion that is practiced among Catholics is the Stations of the Cross. One station features a woman named Veronica, who upon seeing Jesus struggle along the via dolorosa, tenderly wiped his face with her veil. As a special blessing to her, Christ was said to leave the image of His divine face upon her veil. As far as I am aware, there is no anecdote in scripture of this event. It is merely tradition that holds this account. Nevertheless, it was still worthy of consideration: what kind of human emotion, passion, and devotion drove Veronica to do this gesture for Christ?

I leave you with an old poem, a devotion for Good Friday, author unknown. A poem that shares what the writer may have understood as Veronica's emotion.

A Second Chance

Your creased eyes, brown as the wood above your head
Aimed painfully at the thirsty sand below
Are still beautiful -- human -- glossed over with love and silent tears.
Your once crisp beard, now snarled and matted
Is grained like the post from which you hang.
One leather leg crossed over the other displays every bone
While cupped, moist palms pull their weary arms willingly apart,
And a torrid, wavering sun mirrors itself
Upon helmet and sword, spike and hammer.

I wish I could have been there
To touch your cheek
Which they struck;
To remove wet strands of hair from your eyes
Where they crowned you;
To rest my hand on your shoulder
Where they thrashed you;
To speak gently to your parched face
To which they, gritting their teeth, swore and spat.

Perhaps I still can.