Sanctified Scrubbing

We're in the midst of Holy Week, and the appropriate Spring Cleaning over here that must accompany it.

I find it interesting that we Catholics have adopted the ancient Jewish tradition of three days of cleaning before the Paschal Feast.

Scrubbing the bathroom floor, I pondered this mysterious wisdom of those Jewish Mamas.

And then I remembered.

What do women do when they are upset, distressed, or angry?

(After the pint of ice cream, of course)

We clean.

When my fifth pregnancy ended in a miscarriage... the kind where we see the little babe in utero, heartbeat utterly still, where I am still technically pregnant, but with a lifeless little one... guess what I did when I returned home from that fateful doctor appointment?

I scrubbed my house from top to bottom.

My heart was hurting, the tears were flowing, and I needed the physical sweat to accompany my ache in order to validate it in some way. In de-cluttering and vacuuming, I was working through my loss. My husband came home early from work, and somberly helped me. He didn't question it, didn't attempt to stop me. He picked up the broom and the mop and set to work, staying close by my side. He is a smart and loving man.

The loss we Catholics experience every Holy Week is real. The promise of redemption is so hope-filled, but we cannot forget the pain and suffering of He who paid the price for us. Our heart aches, our mind fails to wrap around this Most Perfect Sacrifice, and we must work through it. We must sweat and scrub so that, in some small way, we too can suffer along with our Redemptor.

So that we too can experience a small slice of Calvary.