Sour dough and bitter herbs

We live in the Boston area. This means as a Catholic family we lived through the clergy sex abuse scandal. I remember vividly the Sunday Mass at which the priest announced there would be a special pastoral letter from Cardinal Law about these troubles. He added that families with young children might want to leave after communion, before the letter was read. An X-rated letter from the archbishop! Something of a novelty.

I remember little about the letter itself, except that I was mortified to listen with my sixteen year old daughter and eleven year old son sitting next to me and my wife. Our daughter, who is known for her slightly off-beat wit, turned to me when the episcopal brief was over and said with a wry smile, "Hey, Dad, that was my first pastoral letter ever."

To laugh or cry? I remembered the many pastoral letters about justice and peace and liturgical renewal that shaped my conscience and my soul as a teenager and young adult. A different time. A different church. A different episcopacy.

To be a Catholic today is to have been seasoned by bitter herbs. The Jews include bitter herbs in the Passover Seder, to remind them of the hard years in the desert. To reflect on the hard years endured by so many around the world who live in some kind of exile even today.

Many Catholics have felt exiled within their own church. Some have sacramentalized that exile and left the institution. Others, like me, have remained. But the aftertaste from this scandal lingers.

Catholicism is a stew, a steaming nourishing mix of foods and herbs and spices from many different cultures around the world. It can feed the soul and strengthen you for the journey of faith. But when unhealthy herbs or poisonous weeds are slipped into the pot, it leaves a bitter taste. It can make you feverish and nauseous from food poisoning, sapping your strength, making you unable to continue the journey. You might feel like Elijah in the desert (I Kings 19). You just don't have the strength to go on. So you sit under a juniper tree and figure you might not wake up, and wouldn't that just be easier anyhow.

Then an angel wakes you up and serves you some home made bread. It takes a while, actually two more servings before the nourishment of this angelic bread gets into your system and begins to clean out the poison, and build up some strength. Then you get up and start walking. Elijah made it for forty days and nights on that bread.

I wonder what the angel used to season that bread?