DAY 28: THE GOOD DRESS

Miriam 28 – Happy Palm Sunday Andre! And happy Palm Sunday to our blog, that from now on will wear its good suit, the one for the festivities. The one we would wear on Palm Sunday, when we were kids, for that never-ending and incomprehensible mass, given that we would celebrate the entry into the city of a man who, a few paragraphs later, would be killed on the cross. Joy and pain on the same day, too much for a little heart, a child’s heart, for whom everything that happens is black or white, without shades.

Today, on this Sunday that tastes of festivities and pain, of spring and confinement, there are too many shades, even for a big heart. Too many incomprehensible things, not just written on an ancient book, but there, in front of our own eyes, incomprehensible as this life that is getting out of hand.

But, as children we would accept everything without asking, today we are asked to do the same. We are asked, this Sunday, to accept something bigger, to escape an invisible enemy, to enjoy the “good news” that deaths are decreasing, even if it’s still death we are talking about.

We are asked to wear the good dress, at home, without showing anyone.

Andrea 28– Happy Sunday to you Miri. Today I tested the virtual blessing of a fake olive branch. I detached three leaves from a plant we have on the balcony, and I decided that it will be my palm. I put it in the living room. We need peace. And to hug everybody. It will be a difficult week, because my thoughts are going towards all the things that I usually do during the Holy week: Thursday is my favourite day. I’m not (not anymore) a regular practitioner, but that particular Thursday of every year I try to find half an hour to meditate, by myself, in the church, on my knees. It’s the time of the year when I put everything behind my shoulders, and with my eyes closed I concentrate on my memories, my dreams, my hopes and the thought that those around me are fine. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Last year I must have been distracted, because while some things went well, I also lost someone important. Also, on the Good Friday we would all go back home, while this year my mum has been wondering for a month how Easter is going to be like. It’s going to be like any other day, Mum, only we will wear a prettier dress, like today, and Dad will have to make an online blessing to 8 different homes all connected via videocall. We will teach him how to do it these days.