Well, today is Good Friday and the season of Lent is over. Now we're in the holy season of Triduum which started last night at the beginning of Holy Thursday Mass.
For me, Lent went by pretty quickly. Way more quickly than what last year felt like. I guess I've been really busy this past Lent? I know I was preparing for Confirmation retreats for nearly half of Lent and that used a lot of my time and mental/physical/spiritual effort... And then those were over but I was still busy helping out with religious education... Essentially, just busy...
Kind of hard to stop and smell the roses, you know what I mean?
But let me tell you, once I finally just let myself slow down and take in the wonders of life around me...I made an interesting observation.
One day, a few weeks ago, I was driving home from work. I took a different way home (a path that involves stopping by a Chick-Fil-A, haha) and I couldn't help but notice some of the trees in bloom growing outside of some of the subdivisions. Most bloomed white, but the most striking ones bloomed majestic purple.
I thought to myself, "Huh, that's pretty cool. The trees are blooming purple! Even the trees know it's Lent!" Then I laughed awkwardly to myself because I'm the only one in my car... Of course, because my life is Catholic, I had to post about the trees blooming purple to my favorite Catholic Like page (see top right corner link) as soon as I got home. Had to share it. Not gonna lie.
Anyway, since then, we've had a few severe thunderstorms roll through here in north Texas. The first one involved a ridiculous amount of rain for like a straight day. The most recent one, earlier this week, involved some rain and tornadoes! :-O
In either case, the aftermath of both storms resulted in nature going crazy. (now I'm exaggerating) ... Grass grew like two feet high! Weeds everywhere! Bugs everywhere! Flowers in bloom, moreso! The smell in the air was fresher than some TV princes I know!
Awesome. Even Nature knows it is Lent with the Easter season fastly approaching.
You see, I think in a way, through Nature, God was trying to remind us of the Resurrection. Seeing the purple blossoms in the trees before both storm events reminded me of Lent because the color purple is used during Mass during seasons of preparation (Advent and Lent). The initial purple blossoming of these trees were preparing for the turbulent times we would face in the coming storms.
With that said, I would say that the storms we went through here are kind of like the Passion of Jesus. Violent and destructive, especially with the tornados we saw this past week. And the torrential rains in the first storm offered their own wave of destruction.
But! It is all not wasted! Though Nature brings us these crazy storms, the aftermath results in a renewal of life! Hence the greening plants and their blossoming; the teeming of bug life; the people out and about enjoying the outdoors and weather...and the list goes on.
Yeah, so all of this is kind of like Lent, the Passion, and the Resurrection. Sometimes you just got to take a moment and stop and realize that God speaks to us in different ways to make known and remind us of His existence and what He did for us. He's pretty much preaching the Gospel at all times, if necessary...through Nature. Haha.
Anyway, have a blessed Triduum!
Faith. Hope. Charity. Plants are Catholic too.
- JR
