Excerpts from Ch. 19 Inclusion “Feeling Oneness on Holy Thursday”
Author Jim McGovern is an active member of CPF
I guess it was around seventy years ago now that my 23-yr old mom and her buddy, my Aunt Betty, would spend their Holy Thursdays visiting various churches. I kind of think they weren’t alone in this practice – that many Catholics of that era were devout enough to do such a thing.
… Holy Thursday … Good Friday … Easter Sunday.
When I was in high school I was still going to church, but I sure didn’t do anything as crazy-religious as going church- hopping. And by the time I got to college, I’d pretty much shucked the whole holy day Catholic scene … My new passion was beer and all that went with it. It wasn’t until 1992 that I finally did something about the booze by going to a twelve-step fellowship. Their suggestion that I get a Higher Power in my life if I wanted to stop, eventually took me back through the old church doors again. It took a little doing though, and a little not-so-smooth sailing as relapses kept cropping up until August of 2000.
… Holy Thursday 2010 would find me heading over to Sacred Heart Church in Camden for services. The start time was 7:30 pm so there was no reason for me to miss my weekly 5:30 pm YXQ (Yan Xin Qigong) practice …But … getting out late from work, hearing about and then seeing the huge logjam on the cross town highway … I decided to skip this week’s group practice. … the spot where I bailed out of the traffic jam took me right to a street that leads to one of my favorite YXQ practice spots, the beautiful Al Aqsa mosque at Third and Jefferson Streets … Among other things, it’s the home base for the annual Interfaith Peace Walk whose planning committee I’ve been on for all the years we’ve been having it. As I was still early for the Sacred Heart services, I walked around the block and viewed more closely the work of the people and kids from
all different faiths who had helped turn the old warehouse into the striking, colorful, and beautiful edifice it is today. And on this Holy Thursday night, my multiple-house-of-worship trek brought back to mind those of my mother from all those years ago.
Funny how a few extra minutes to not have to do anything can get the mind working. The same thing happened when I drove over to South Camden. Still being a good half-hour early for mass, I decided to walk down towards the river … Oceans and rivers always strike me with a sense of timelessness, and I guess this little trip down the lanes of time had me thinking it was only about 400 years ago when the first of us white men sailed up that river. How radically different, the surroundings then and now. And I thought of the Native Americans and their reverence for nature and Mother Earth. On that magnificently clear night I’d suppose there was no harm or stretch in my calling that church visit spot No 2.
Mass at Sacred Heart, as it almost always is, was something of a mystical experience. Fr. Michael Doyle … told the tale of a small crucifix up on the altar. Given by a grandmom to an aunt to a niece to a daughter, the cross dates back almost to 1872 and the church’s first Holy Thursday …
Easter season 1872 Sacred Heart saw the light of day. In 1941 my mom and her dear friend went from church to church seeking some grace and adventure. Four hundred years ago William Penn sailed up the Delaware. In April 1992 I put down a bottle and went looking for a Power Higher. Eight years later the Power finally kept it down. Two thousand years ago, a Jew from Galilee supped with his buddies before giving up his body and blood so we could live forever.
… Sacred Heart’s Good Friday Via Cruces stops at several spots where people were killed in street violence. Tyranny surrounds us. Along with the pain at our non-loving ways, grace and peace and justice and happiness will emanate from that cross until the end of time. It is up to us to go there …
is a member of CPF and author of several books
We highly recommend Jim’s book Inclusion. It can be purchased through Amazon
Inclusion
With spiritual step method to better process loss of a loved one James F. McGovern Jr., 2015 ISBN: 1508648220
Jim McGoven
