The Passion and the WC

Living in Switzerland for over a month now, we are starting to get more comfortable with our day-to-day activities and our home. Our sea shipment just arrived, so we have been united with our furniture, pictures, and stuff.

We also are settling in with our new Church community. We attend a parish that offers the one and only English-speaking Mass in Bern, Switzerland. The parish does not have a pastor of its own and hasn’t for the last two years, so instead, we have a different priest celebrate Mass every week.

All of that to say, for me, this has been a Lenten season void of the Christian community.

As a result, I was looking forward to Holy Week, the high point of our Christian faith, starting with Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday for Catholics is one of the most extended Masses of the liturgical year, yet one of the most powerful, as we not only listen to the Lord’s Passion, we take part in it.

Immersing ourselves in the Lord’s Passion brings up all kinds of emotions. Although we play the role of the crowd as we retell the story within Mass, I can relate to so many of the characters involved. Judas betrays Jesus, Peter, who denies our Lord, the vengeance and anger of the high priests, the elders, and the scribes, and even the blindness of Pilate. Raw emotions usually overflow within me as I feel all sorts of unworthiness and need for a Savior.

This particular Mass brings to the surface the 40 day’s worth of preparation and preparedness which culminates with my deep desire for Hope.

As we got to the church (after running down the hill from our house to the tram station), I should have known that the deep yearning I had to be close to Jesus was not going to go as I had planned.

As I knelt and tried to quiet my soul so that I could listen to what God might have to say to me on this day, I instead heard a different voice. The voice of my seven-year-old son calling into my right ear, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy….”

I tried to ignore it and concentrate on the Lord, thinking that if my son saw me kneeling, with my eyes closed, he would know that I was kind of in the middle of something. Instead, the rapidness of the calling and the intensity picked up. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Finally, I gave in, turned to him, and asked what he needed. He responded with, “is today Palm Sunday?”

Now, usually, this would be a great question, but since we talked about it 58 times leading up to today and 34 times just on the tram ride coming into Bern, the question didn’t seem that cute to me.

The first reading was proclaimed, then the Psalm, then the second reading. Now we were ready for the Passion according to the Gospel of Mark. We stood and were prepared to begin.

Everything was going as planned at this point. My two boys were content as my wife Amy and I followed along together. I even got to shut my eyes for a good portion as I began to allow my life and emotions to be immersed into the story.

Then, just as Jesus was nailed to the cross, just as He was asking the Father why He had forsaken Him, just as we were about to kneel, like Mary, at the foot of the cross as Jesus breathed His last breath…I heard that voice again.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, I have to go potty!!”

The emotions of the moment are broken, and the connection to the death of Jesus on the cross vanished.

Or did it.

Without a doubt, becoming a parent is the ultimate death experience, and it is no longer what I want but what my children need at that moment.

Today I wanted to be in silence with my Lord, and I wanted to be in that place of contemplation that I have missed and longed for since moving to a foreign country. Instead, I got my seven-year-old son asked me to take him to the “potty.”

Thank you, Lord, for speaking to me today through my son. Thank you for reminding me that the whole point of the Lord’s Passion is sacrifice.

I went to church today wanting to be close to the Lord at His Passion.

I might have accomplished this at the WC.

(By the way, WC stands for “Water Closet,” in other words, toilet.)