Self-distancing doesn’t stop a celebration of our faith

Unthinkable. Lent without going to church would have been unthinkable for my husband and me after more than 40 years of attending Easter services together: From newlyweds, to baby carriages, to sulky teens, to freshly showered grandchildren, we have carted our family to Ash Wednesdays, Palm Sundays, Holy Thursdays, Good Fridays and Easter Sundays.

Not so this year: we are way past senior age and have been advised by our physicians to stay away from large crowds. Gulp.

But it is not that unthinkable. In fact, in the ’50s, my own grandmother taught me how to distance-go-to church. From the age of 6, I had been her daily companion, the one who went with her to daily Mass at 6:30 every morning, the two blocks walk that became my private adventure. Granny, one hand on her cane and the other firmly on my forearm, had trouble getting around, but she was an expansive tour director always ready to point out a new budding flower, a sick eucalyptus tree on full recovery or the waking up call of a bird. She talked to them, her “reminders of unswerving love,” to use her own words. We came back home just on time for me to grab breakfast and hop into the school bus, one of many childhood days experienced though my grandma’s eyes.

I was 8 when Granny’s health forced her to skip church for good. But we did not skip church: She knew that faith goes where we go. In those days, there was no TV in our home, but we did have a radio in the sitting room, one of those big contraptions with interesting glass bulbs inside, which transmitted daily Mass before dawn. She and I sat next to the window and listened. Granny lit a candle and we held hands throughout the service while she translated from Latin, a revelation for me, given that I had never heard the service in my own language. We lived at a high altitude so it was not unusual for the day to begin with a deep blanket of fog, which only gradually turned into a lighter gray: We frequently heard the sounds of nature before we saw its colors. It was a magical sequence that Granny and I enjoyed. When I think of those mornings, I know that I know something about love.

Forward 60-plus years. Last Sunday, my husband and I, surrounded by our grandchildren, attended early morning Mass from the comfort of our sunroom, a windowed enclosure encircled by our garden.

Our teen granddaughter was quick to point out that “there is, after all, a good side to technology invading one’s home,” her smile wider than I have seen in months. The meaning of the service, which was available through the internet, was enhanced by the waking up of nature in all its spring cacophony, an echo of my childhood radioed Mass memories. The chance of holding the younger girls on my lap and explaining to them what was going on in the huge screen, their startling soprano imitation of the church choir, the careful way in which they followed my every move, the emotional strength of their young arms around my neck when whispering “peace be with you” in my ear, the sense of communion with the world, and indeed with all creation, and the certainty that we are not alone, all pointed to the sacredness of the Eucharist. It was, it is, a deeply spiritual togetherness.