II Holy Thursday 2026

Holy Thursday 2026

It is Holy Thursday.

Cloudy. Raining. Nothing is in my calendar until the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. A quite day. Unusual. For forty years, Holy Week was a beehive of activity. Rehearsals. Homily preparation. Decorating. Confessions. Last minute details. This year, an absence. A longing. It is difficult to find my footing after so many years of being at the center of the activity.

Two Lents ago, retirement came unexpectedly; without preparation or foresight. Packing. Searching for a first apartment. Moving. Settling in.

Last year I spent Holy Week with the Greeks and Anglicans. Familiar traditions in which I am comfortable. Both have enriched my Catholic, Roman tradition. But something had changed. They were no longer comfortable ecumenical spiritual homes. I was wandering. I still am.

This Lent, I began settling into one parish after wandering each Sunday from community to community. Sitting in the pews. Experiencing my Church, our liturgy, myself, from a different perspective. I am still not at home.

I suppose I am like many Catholics these days. Searching. Some reach back to the past. A presumed haven. A place of stability and unquestioned truth. That is not possible. Not for me. Others absent themselves but remain on the margins. Still others have left for alternate harbours. I, like many, long for a Church that doesn’t yet fully exist. We are wandering. Unsatisfied. Frustrated. Searching. Sad. Living in liminal spaces is disconcerting at best. You have not arrived. You are in-between. We were warned. “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” [Matthew 8:20] I have no place to rest my head.

The Catholic Church and its rich, ancient traditions have been my home for seventy years. There is no other place. But something has changed. I presume, like any relationship, both of us have changed. And as in any relationship both partners at times need to become – reacquainted? A new courtship with life, Church and priesthood? A rapprochement?

With all the support of parish and clerical life removed, I am alone. My life of symbol, mythos, and ritual is parched. The cycle of liturgical seasons, feasts and fasts, Sundays and weekdays, Vigils, Funeral Masses, and daily Eucharists is negligible. I am trying to balance on an unstable foundation like a Bosu ball at the gym. Sundays and Holy Days were filled with people, liturgies, and activity. There is little with which to gauge my life in this liminal place. What energizes me? What am I about as a person? How do I reorient / recreate myself as a priest removed from the sacred clerical universe?

I’ve moved. Ten times in forty years. I’ve moved. But this time, from the familiarity of lifestyle, lifecycles and sanctuary. My love of music, theatre, reading and art have shifted. Tastes change. Have I moved away from myself?

Each move breaks bonds. Bonds within us. Bonds of friendship. And they were friendships. But distance and time take their toll that no technology can bridge. Relationships are rooted in proximity. How often do you become friends with a person because of workplace, a choral group, school, the gym, a volunteer fire department, church, or neighborhood. Relationships mature because of regularity and proximity of place. The recurrent encounter seals the bond. That bond is tried when one person retires, a new relationship enters their life, a new position is accepted, family matters predominate like taking care of a parent, or someone moves to another city. Effort is initially made to keep the bond secured but then new aspects of life and mundane concerns take over. The emails and calls one day - stop. It is no one’s fault. It is life in a mobile society. The relationship begins to fade. This is how I feel. Proximity is gone.

Proximity is not just a physical place. It can be internal. There is a difference when the bond that is broken is within us rather than external to us. The loss of internal proximity affects our relationship with ourselves.

I was offered an assignment back to a previous parish. My immediate response was “No.” I can’t go back. The parish, the staff, and the situation have changed. It would never be the same. Nostalgia is a nice place to visit but not within which to reside. Lot’s wife is a warning to all who want to go back. You become bitter like salt. An unmovable pillar. Forward is the only direction open to us, even if you are walking into an unknown sea. God said to Moses, “Tell the people to go forward…” [Exodus 14:15] So forward I go. Wading. Wandering. Wondering. Wavering.

It is only a year since…I call it, my New Phase. I’ve been told to wait. “It” will come to me. Whatever “it” is. Are my travels this year a running away; an attempt to fill an uncomfortable absence? I expect so. Much of it is going back to familiar haunts. “Remember Lot’s wife.” [Luke 17:32]. I may be fooling myself that they will energize me. It is with great difficulty that we learn that all we need is within us. Dorothy of Oz fame learned that lesson at an early age.

I’ve begun to perceive that I should write. Commanded, through a quote from Saint Bernard. “Stop putting off this project.” The spoken, living, Word in preaching and teaching have been my staple. To sit and write is difficult. It is using new muscles. But…there is always the but, isn’t there.

It is Holy Thursday.

It is the night in which Jesus institutes the Eucharist and the priesthood. What a terribly technical word, “institutes” is for a shared meal with friends. We priests can become isolated by Orders. Sanctuaries. Lifestyle. Privileges. They are safe havens, whether we admit it or not. To blind ourselves from these realities; we do so at our own peril. Clericalism is the deadliest sin we priests commit. It is a sin against our Order and against the People. Saint Norbert asks, “O Priest, you are not yourself…what then are you?” He answers, “Nothing and everything.” What did Norbert mean?

It is Holy Thursday.

It is the night that Pesach begins. Two Passovers, Jewish and Christian, coinciding. Darkness, death and blood are present in our midst. Fear of the unknown and betrayal lurk in the shadows. Preparation. Eating and drinking. Slavery and freedom from slavery. Leave-taking and scattering. Prayer. Psalms. Shadows.

It is Holy Thursday.

It is twilight.

It is difficult to clearly see at twilight.

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Very Rev’d David Wm. Mickiewicz, July 2026