Good Friday in Quarantine

I hope my readers had a blessed Good Friday. I worked from home until just before our church had a livestream of their Good Friday service. It was beautiful, and the homily was very powerful, and then as the few people who were able to attend (the cantor, deacon, reader, and servers) kissed the crucifix, I went and kissed the equally large crucifix Ethel gave us as a wedding present and that I had just unearthed a couple of days ago. The timing of things this Lent has been astounding to me: my Blessed Sacrament chaplet arrived yesterday, so I was able to say it for the commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist, which is fitting because it is a spiritual communion prayer, and this is the first Holy Thursday since I became Catholic that I haven't actually received communion. (Except maybe once when I was sick.) While the few people people at this Good Friday service received communion, I said the Blessed Sacrament chaplet, and it is a very short chaplet so I was finished just as they were. But all these timings can't be a coincidence, can they? I think of my mysterious chaplet, and how I only discovered during this pandemic that it is perfect for a St. Anthony chaplet, which is such a fitting prayer for this terrible situation. And the little Padre Pio chaplet that arrived in junk mail about a month ago - that was also perfect timing, because I started praying it for a holy Lent, liked it a lot, and ordered more for the Rosary Ladies... and then by the time they arrived less than a week later, the pandemic had hit, so we had something specific to pray for when I gave them the chaplets. And even something not particularly sacred, like my list of salsa songs that disappeared, and I could never find it until now, during social isolation, when it really cheered me up. I don't think these are coincidences but God-incidents.

Just now Rich and I prayed a Stations of the Cross chaplet over FaceTime. I loved the chaplet when Mo-Girl first gave it to me, but it has really come in handy this Lent, when I couldn't attend Stations of the Cross. In some ways this has been a sad Lent, because we are separated from the sacraments, but in a way I feel like it was my most holy one ever, because I had so much opportunity to pray and meditate... and see God's Will in action when all these random things happened to me at just the right moment.

Famous Hat