Spring cleaning

I stepped outside today, and for the first time this year it smelled like spring.  My lungs filled with the sweet, warm air.  The giant pink magnolia tree in our front yard just began its brief but glorious bloom.  I know many parts of the country are still deep in winter, but it is planting time here in Fayetteville.  It's time to prepare our spiritual and physical homes for Lent, to bury the Alleluia, to bury ourselves so that we can be born again with Christ in the fruitfulness of His Resurrection.

I am so ready to purge.  On the outside, I am constantly bustling like Martha; I am an accomplished homemaker- a "supermom." People wonder how I do it all.  On the inside, I am dusty and my spiritual gears are crunching and grinding from congealed grease.  At Mass, my mind is in a million different places other than in the Church with the Presence that pleads for my love.  My soul is sick, and it is now time to repent and stand in silence before Christ begging, Miserere mei, Domine.

Sunday's recessional hymn was one of my favorites, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.  The grand organ began its prologue, and then suddenly with a splutter and a crack, the electricity went out.  Silence.  Paul knocked off his horse.  Then someone in the choir shook off his surprise and began the first verse, with the choir and congregation joining in a Capella. The men's and women's voices resonated clear and strong, an octave apart:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!