Let there be light.

Finally… we have electricity in our little chapel. It's been a long time coming since the chapel was cleaned out last August before Long Retreat. We had been singing Compline by candlelight and hurricane lamps, and while it was romantically monastic, it took a lot of mirrors scrounged from everywhere to reflect enough light to actually see the pages. Some of us bought battery operated book lights to supplement the candles, but our eyes just aren't what they used to be.

Then came more refurbishing. While new tiles were being laid (to replace the predilla we ripped out in August), we came back to the great room for Offices and Mass. As the weather turned cool there was often a fire in the fireplace. Back in the chapel the workmen finished cleaning the grout, but only a couple of us were anxious to return. It turned even colder, then rainy, and the unheated disheveled chapel just didn't have any appeal over someplace warm, dry and cozy. As sacristan, I took on the cleaning detail… working against the time when it might stop raining and warm up. For several satisfying days I scrubbed tile, dusted cobwebs, washed windows, oiled wood. I was rewarded with sunshine and the other morning we held our first Eucharist there with music. You could see everyone's breath as we sang. It was pretty frosty, yet somehow invigorating to be back in sacred space.

We'd been asking various electricians for quotes for months. And, just in the nick of time one company came through and wired us up yesterday. Setting up for Mass early this morning was luxurious; I was blessed with heat and light. So much of our American culture creates numbing expectations. We expect heat and light and running water as a matter of course. But it is not that way everywhere. In some countries water is more precious than gold, a matter of life and death. Here, being without it for a time, for whatever reason, shakes me out of that numbness and reinstills gratitude.

Today is the Feast Day of Sts. Simon and Jude, Apostles who gave their lives, persecuted for being Christians. Yet I have freedom to worship without persecution, and warmth and light to do it in comfort. For these and all our many blessings, thanks be to God.