Juliet was right – parting is indeed a sweet sorrow

It finally came to be – that much dreaded pastoral letter coming from our bishop to inform us of his decision to suspend all public celebrations of weekday and weekend Masses in this island republic of Singapore, for at least until the situation of the COVID-19 virus is somewhat under control.  To be frank, we could see signs that this unfortunate state of affairs was looming on the horizon, and it was more a matter of “when” than a matter of “if”. The notice was made on Friday evening, and yesterday was the very first Sunday that was affected.

The last public Mass that I celebrated was on Saturday morning in my parish.  I have celebrated so many funeral Masses in my priesthood that I have lost count, but I can say for certain that this was a Mass that was significantly more sentimental than any of the other funeral Masses.  Moreover, this was not even a funeral Mass to begin with, but it was the last time I was going to celebrate the Eucharist with my parishioners until public Masses are reinstated in the future, and we aren’t even sure when that will be.

I am certain that this drastic decision was not one that was hastily nor easily made by our bishop.  It must have been a very painful one.  As well, I am quite certain that such a situation has never been faced by any of his preceding bishops, and hopefully, none of those of who will be his successors in the future either.  To suspend all public Eucharistic celebrations is akin to cutting off a Catholic’s daily spiritual sustenance, if one is a daily communicant.  

Closing the Mass with a solemn blessing on the congregation, I felt as if we were, as a community, going into a certain ‘vacancy’ or ‘void’. This was not out of a choice of our own, but there would be a shared emptiness that we were entering into.  

It is highly likely that we won’t be coming out of this before Lent begins in slightly over a week.  As a result, it is quite possible that we won’t even be celebrating Ash Wednesday with a Mass, where we will be starting our journey into the desert with Jesus for 40 days, and having our foreheads smeared with dirt.  However, having said that, it did feel like our Lent started one and a half weeks earlier with Saturday morning’s somber Mass.  

One of the things Lent tries to have us experience is an entering into a ‘lack’ or ‘void’ in life.  This is the essence behind the call to practicing forms of mortification and sacrifices in Lent, where we give up something we cherish and are fond of, or taking up something that is difficult and challenging, to create a space where we love God and one another with greater intention. 

When Lent ends, we enter into Holy Week, where for one day in the entire year, on Good Friday, there is no celebration of the Mass.  It is a day to commemorate in a very vivid way the emptiness that creation experienced when God died on Calvary, out of love for us.  But this sense of being deprived of the Eucharist isn’t very deeply entered into, because on Good Friday, Holy Communion is still distributed as part of the service.  There is, in essence no real experience of being deprived of Jesus in the sacrament. Besides, the church has only to wait till the next evening, Holy Saturday night, where the mother of all liturgies will be celebrated in the Easter Vigil.  Though the Church has the intention of having her devotees to experience a ‘lack’, it is more symbolic than anything.  The reception of Holy Communion at the Easter Vigil Mass, and the celebration of Mass is meant to give us good reason to rejoice in a renewed and more emphatic way, and this is felt primarily by those who have been observing the liturgical celebrations of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.  However, as these are not days of obligations, not all Catholics would experience this ‘lack’, especially if they had only gone for Mass on Palm Sunday and one week later, are present at the Easter Sunday Mass.  

But with this suspension of all weekday and Sunday Masses for all Catholics in Singapore, this ‘emptiness’ is going to be felt and experienced by every single Catholic, whether he is a ‘Sunday’ Catholic or not.  

It is for this reason that I would say that there is something positive that could emerge from the bishop’s decision to suspend all Masses till further notice.  Apart from trying our best as a community to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 virus, every Catholic has no choice but to be drawn into a ‘vacancy’ where there is no easy access to Mass.  

Of course, the danger or downside to this is that those who were previously lukewarm or tepid about their faith could end up being even further from the Mass.  But this would be akin to looking at the situation from a ‘half-empty glass’ standpoint.  We need to be people of hope and think positively, even in the face of challenges and difficult decisions.

My positive outlook at this is that the hunger that is imposed on every Catholic with regard to access to the Mass can be a good thing.  I believe that when the situation calms down and things get back to the semblance of normalcy, and when we can once again freely celebrate the Eucharist, the hunger and ache that we had experienced will make us appreciate Mass in a new and heightened way.  I have hope that the congregation will be more participative, and there will be a renewed joy and pride (good pride, of course), in every celebration of the Eucharist. I have hope that previously tepid hearts will have new, warm blood coursing through their veins.  I have hope that there will be a new gratitude and appreciation for what could have just been taken for granted before.  

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a very often-quoted line is one in which after the two lovers having talked the whole night to each other, Juliet parts ways with Romeo with the words “parting is such sweet sorrow”.  Though they have to part, and the parting is painful, it is the anticipation of their next meeting that makes this parting pain something that can be sweet.  

We could learn something from the bard here.  This ‘gap’ that we as a Catholic community are facing may be bitter, painful and sorrowful.  But when we cast our eyes on the day this emptiness is over, the sweetness of that day makes this time of emptiness something that has positivity in it.

Indeed, absence can and should make the heart grow fonder.