Tuesday (Oscar Romero)

As bizarrely abnormal as all days are now, today felt at one level like a return to normal. Last week was hijacked by the pandemic and my need to keep responding to it pastorally. Most everything else got lost in the shuffle--at least mentally and emotionally, if not actually. So now we're all hunkering down at home--well, I work from home at least three days each week anyway, which accounts for why it feels "normal" to be organizing tasks and making my way through the list. Of course, like I said, the situation is not normal at all; it just feels that way to me on one level. Today I spent a lot of time *communicating* with the Communicator, toward the end of some special responses to our newly straitened circumstances. The Living Church Institute has begun a podcast, and YFNB is the first presenter--on the subject how to think about the Eucharist during a time of pandemic. It went live this afternoon. I also spent a chunk of time preparing a Palm Sunday homily, just as if I were actually going to be at St Paul's Cathedral to deliver. I will, instead, deliver it by video from our domestic oratory. It's important that we still, as far as we are able, do the things we do. Sadly, one of the things *I* do, as you know, is walk, but my foot injury from a week ago finds my right foot in a boot and instructions to avoid any unnecessary walking. I did make a foray to the grocery store nearby for some essentials, taking all due precautions, but even that made my adult children all squirrelly. They would prefer I stay indoors, or venture no further than the alley to put the trash out. Apparently, I am a man under authority.