Last night I had the privilege of serving at the Palm Sunday Vigil Mass with Father Jim Walter. After three weeks of being away from our church building, I felt a sense of relief and peace being able to (finally) serve again in the place that I quickly learned to call "home" since arriving just over a year ago. Some people can live in the same place their entire lives and never feel like they belong. I, on the other hand, felt so loved and welcomed by the St. John's community that I can hardly imagine being anywhere else. 

Those were the feelings going through my head as I served with Father Jim at the altar. Finally, home again.

And yet, as beautiful as the Mass was, looking out at the empty pews made me incredibly sad. We talk about the Mass as the "source and summit" of our faith. Nevertheless, when forced to offer that sacrifice without all of you with me it somehow felt incomplete. This is my own Good Friday that I have been struggling with these past few weeks. A deacon, ordained to serve, separated from the community to whom he has been sent. It has been a profound part of my prayer life these past weeks and, likely, will be for the foreseeable future.

I think all of us, in different ways, have struggled with the same thing in our isolation. Connected to one another in such a powerful way, how do we deal with the emptiness and loneliness of being separated so abruptly and completely. It is a loss, perhaps even more accurately, it's a "little death" that forces us to search deep inside ourselves to find meaning and reorient ourselves to deal with the absence of the ones we love. I confess, I'm not that good at it, and it's been a painful experience.

As we enter into Holy Week, I offer this as my prayer for all of you: Despite the distance, you are never far from my heart. One thing I am learning is that physical presence only scrapes the surface. As Jesus marched towards Golgotha, everything was taken from him. Yet, as he emptied himself, he became more present to us all. Perhaps we can learn the same thing as this Good Friday becomes more real to us than any of the others that we have experienced before. 

Peace and love to you all for a most blessed Holy Week.  

Deacon Peter