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Jolly Hockey Sticks
At some stage during my hormone ridden, pluke infested, adolescence I remember hanging over the parapet of a railway bridge with a number of my fellow callow youths. Half of the group were excitedly awaiting the arrival of a locomotive with a certain number, the rest of us were equally enthusiastically ogling the thighs of the girls playing hockey on the field adjoining the railway line. The sad thing is that the train spotters undoubtedly still find the sight of a 4-4-2 attractive. I went right off lady hockey players after I had the misfortune to play a game against a female team. Women's hockey is rugby league with sticks. The mental scars remain.
However much I try to be nostalgic, I cannot, for the life of me, understand how anybody found a dirty, smoke belching, steam locomotive even remotely interesting. These chaps stood with shining eyes, biros poised, Ian Allan booklets in hand, on station platforms in all weathers, waiting to cross out the serial numbers of lumbering behemoths.
In a similar way, particularly at this time of the year, the general public probably look on we Christians as religious nerds. For them, Lent, like Advent, has gone by the board, Good Friday is a day to go shopping, Easter is a Bank Holiday. Hot Cross buns have been on the shelves since New Year's Day, chocolate eggs and the ubiquitous bunny arrived shortly after. What is there to be overjoyed about?
Not so for us. Lent has not simply been a remembrance of Our Lord's forty days of temptation in the wilderness. It has also been a time of preparation for the celebration of the Pascal mysteries. We have watched and waited, prayed and fasted, attended to the scriptures, and studied together. Spiritually, we have been fortified, and now the preparations are coming to a momentous climax.
On that day on the bridge, if the Mallard had passed through the railway aficionados would have been cock-a-hoop. The rest of us would still have been preoccupied with the hockey players' thighs. The sight of the risen Lord is far more invigorating than that. We don't want you to miss it.
May God bless you all, Fr Allan
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