The altar was stripped, and we felt the stark but telling Absence. The next day, we symbolically walked the Via Dolorosa and the horror of the crucifixion settled in upon us. We kissed Our Lord’s feet (or bowed to them because of COVID-19 restrictions) as He hung upon the cross: the sacred agony that becomes a part of us. The following day we waited, the figurative waiting for Jesus to come back to us. In the wait, we were solemn and somber, we mourned, and we wept.
Some time ago, in the feverish throes of buying a book for a good friend’s birthday, I had an epiphany. Wrapping the book in colored paper and neatly nestling it in the gift bag, my wife asked me what I had purchased. After naming the book and smiling at my own thoughtfulness, my wife quipped, “Ah. You bought him a gift, not a present.” Momentarily flummoxed, I had to ask her what she meant. “Well,” she explained, “a gift is something you want them to have; a present is something they actually want.”