Holy Week | dual personalities

April 17, 2025

“Forty-one, why did he do that?”

by chuckofish

Well, we are in for some bad weather again–of course, the Easter weekend will be rainy and stormy. So much for egg hunts etc. C’est la vie.

But our zeal will not be dampened!

Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand;
The shadow of a mighty rock
Within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness,
A rest upon the way,
From burns beneath the noontide heat
And burdens of the day.

–Elizabeth Cecilia Douglas Clephane, 1868

We started watching Ben Hur (1959) last weekend and we will finish up this weekend. We are too old and go to bed too early to watch it all at once. But that’s okay. We have seen it so many times, we know it by heart.

“We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well, and live.”

The familiarity of old films is one of the special pleasures in life. At least for oddballs like me and my family members who enjoy watching and re-watching old movies.

(The twins also got their first look at this classic movie.)

I know we are in a distinct minority here. I know this from the blank looks I receive when I mention an old movie no one else has seen. Sigh.

The other night watching the scene in the galley when Quintus Arrius orders Ben Hur’s shackles to be unlocked before the sea battle and the slave next to him asks him, “Forty-one, why did he do that?” and Judah says, “I don’t know. Once before, a man helped me. I didn’t know why then”…I thought of the times someone has helped me in a somewhat mysterious way. It is, of course, God working “10,000 things in your life every day” and we need to watch for those times. They may not be as obvious as Jesus giving you a drink of water when you are dying of thirst, but maybe they are. Keep watching for them.

In the meantime, watch a (good) old religious movie during Holy Week, check out the budding trees and plants in your yard, look up, pray.

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March 28, 2024

Afterward you will understand

by chuckofish

Today is Maundy Thursday–the day during Holy Week which commemorates the washing of the disciples’ feet and the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the disciples.

You might want to take some time out of your busy day and think about that.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ²During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, ³Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. ⁵Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. ⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” ⁷Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” ⁸Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet,^[a] but is completely clean. And you^[b] are clean, but not every one of you.” ¹¹For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

¹²When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? ¹³You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. ¹⁴If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.
–John 13:1-15

Here’s a helpful review of Holy Week in real time.

The painting is by Ford Madox Brown (1821–1893)

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April 12, 2019

Hallowed be thy name

by chuckofish

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We are almost to Holy Week! I have been terribly remiss and unfocused in my Lenten endeavors (or lack thereof.)

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Palm Sunday is this Sunday! I am not the narrator this year in our reading of the Passion Narrative. 😭 No, I am back in the bit player ranks–a “priest”. 😭 C’est la vie.

But on the bright side, Sunday night we have tickets to see Ben Hur (1959) on the Big Screen, which should be awesome.

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Let’s toast that and a return to focusing on what’s important.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

(Robert Robinson 1757)

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March 21, 2016

“What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend…*

by chuckofish

…for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?”

And so we enter Holy Week. We started it off with a bang on Sunday with a snow storm in the early hours of the morning (it looked liked soap flakes in a bad movie!)

(This photo does not quite do justice to the enormous fluffy snowflakes that were, indeed, falling.)

and with a two-hour Palm Sunday service, complete with Passion reading by the lay reader A team. I was the narrator and I felt very blessed to do it. My friend Chris was Jesus, and as his wife said during the passing of the peace, “It’s going to go to his head.” I will try to remain humble.

The snow was all gone by the time I went home after church. This is par for the course in flyover country, where every year the magnolias and the pear trees burst forth and then turn brown when the temperature drops.

I, of course, had just moved all my plants out to the Florida room–hopefully they will survive this cold snap, because I am not moving them back!

I did a lot of work in the house (including the aforementioned Florida room overhaul) in preparation for some work that is being done today. Also the boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner on Sunday night and then I watched The Robe (1953).

Marcellus and Demetrius in ancient Rome

This launched my plan to watch religious movies intently this week leading up to my yearly viewing of Ben Hur (1959) on Good Friday. I have been very slack in regards to appropriate movie watching this Lent, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

Mea culpa.

Have a good Monday. Mine will be very busy as will my week.

(The OM took the photo of the pear trees in bloom.)

*O sacred head now wounded, Herzlich tut michverlangen

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March 30, 2015

“The thorn tree had a mind to Him, when into the woods He came.”*

by chuckofish

Did I not tell you this would happen? Here is the picture I tore the house apart looking for–daughter #1 making palm crosses in the fifth or sixth grade…I found it on Sunday, sitting peacefully in a shoe box on a shelf…C’est la vie.

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A basket of palm crosses at Grace this year.

In church on Palm Sunday we read the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark in place of the Gospel reading. The layreaders took the parts. I was a “Bystander”, which, as my friend Carla explained to my seat-mate, is a step up for me. Usually I am a “Servant Girl”. Carla was a “Witness” and her husband was Judas–who only has two lines, one of which is “Rabbi!” His Method Acting was impressive. My favorite part was when Peter says, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about” and I really think the reader was a bit lost. There is a lot of jockeying for position around the microphone. Since only three of us showed up for practice last week, some confusion is understandable and, although quite avoidable, again par for the course.

And so we enter Holy Week. I’m afraid I have not kept a good Lent. And by that I mean that The Robe (1950) is the only movie on my Lenten movie list that I have watched! I plan to make up for it this week with non-stop biblical epic-watching, culminating, of course, with Ben Hur on Good Friday. I can do this! However, you will not catch me watching A.D. The Bible Continues on Easter. Nosiree, Bob. I will be watching Wolf Hall on Masterpiece Theatre/PBS that night. I advise you to mark your calendars and do the same! It was a huge hit in Britain and I hope that means they did a good job turning this great book into a mini series. We’ll see.

In other news, this weekend there was a three-day estate sale across the street at our neighbor’s house. I got to experience first-hand the annoyance of having hundreds of strangers coming and going and parking all over the place. The shoe was on the other foot and it was weird. The estate sale company put up “No Parking” signs in front of our house and beside it, so we didn’t really have anything to complain about. At least the OM didn’t get into a fight with anyone, which is always a possibility when he comes in contact with the public. Now we will just have to deal with the house being for sale. Whatever.

We had the boy and daughter #3 and some friends over for dinner on Sunday night to hear the highlights of their recent trips to NYC. It was super fun and then the weekend was over.

Have a good Monday.

*Sidney Lanier, A Ballad of the Trees and the Master. Check this out.

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April 15, 2014

O sacred head, sore wounded*

by chuckofish

And so we enter Holy Week.

At our church we “re-enact” the Passion Drama during the service on Palm Sunday. Usually I am assigned to be a minor character like a serving girl (“You also were with Jesus the Galilean”) or the Centurion (“Truly this man was the Son of God!”), but this year I was not included at all. (My friend Carla and I joke about this because between the two of us we have been lay readers for nearly half a century, but we are no closer to being the Narrator or some named part than Joyce Meyer. Carla was a serving girl this year.)

I was a lector, however, and got to read a rousing lesson from Isaiah: “The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near…” and so on. I do love Isaiah.

Sunday night I was planning to watch The Robe on Netflix Watch Instantly, but we couldn’t get it to work, so I watched a large part of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth instead. I highly recommend it. It reflects, of course, the Roman side of the story and does a nice job of letting them off the hook. But Robert Powell is really great and so are the supporting players. Laurence Olivier as Nicodemus is one of my favorites.

During the week I will continue to read and watch appropriate fare, i.e. I abstained from watching Dancing With the Stars and their Disney-themed episode last night. Believe me it was not much of a sacrifice.

I have signed up to participate in the Good Friday Vigil following the Maundy Thursday service. I will be “waiting in the garden” from 5:00–6:00 a.m.

Window in Christ Episcopal Church, Poughkeepsie, NY

I have done this before and it is really quite a meaningful exercise. You are alone (with one other person) in the semi-dark of the spooky downstairs chapel with nothing to do but “stay awake for one hour” (see above window) and pray and meditate on Jesus and his sacrifice. This is right up my alley and better than the very public display of look-at-me-washing-someone’s-feet that is Maundy Thursday. To each his own.

Do you have any special plans for Holy Week?

* Traditional Hymn, attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, trans. by Paul Gerhardt and James W. Alexander–We sang it on Palm Sunday which made me happy, especially my favorite verse:

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

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