An escaped snake and a Holy Week lesson

“Now the snake was the most crafty of all the wild animals that the Lord God experienced made.” — Genesis 3:1

In his common viewers speech on Spy Wednesday in 2009, Pope Benedict informed the group gathered in St. Peter’s Sq. that Holy Week “gives us the possibility to immerse ourselves in the central events of the Redemption, to relive the Paschal Mystery, the great thriller of religion.”

Immersing ourselves in the sacred liturgies and occasions of Holy Week is just what my household experienced planned. Also, we had spent months tending to all of the (primarily little) assignments all around the home that we’d been putting off for several years — hanging pictures, replacing the lacking tile in the lavatory, wiping down walls and the like. See, our oldest daughter, Olivia, was coming house for Easter, and she was bringing her new boyfriend with her — for the very first time, and there was even now much to be performed.

Even for a family that is applied to currently being active, there was a lot heading on. But to estimate the psalmist, “The Lord appreciates the designs of male they are like a fleeting breath” (94:11).

Issues began slipping aside the earlier 7 days. Our middle son came down with a case of strep throat before Palm Sunday, and for the duration of Holy Week, it experienced distribute to our two other sons — and even worse, my spouse. A lengthy, tricky Lent was not likely absent quietly.

While we canceled Easter functions with our prolonged people, the antibiotics did their work healing the ill perfectly ample that it appeared like Olivia (and her boyfriend, Alex) had the environmentally friendly light to come and stop by. Or so we believed.

In purchase to give you the comprehensive scope of the chaos that ensued, I require to rewind a handful of months. Sometime close to August of final calendar year, my stunning spouse, whom I enjoy, was acquiring a dialogue with my reptile-loving 16-12 months-old son, Grant, about his inadequate grades from the earlier faculty 12 months. In this little chat, she promised him that he could get a snake if, by some miracle, he was to make all A’s and B’s all through the 1st semester. (Full disclosure: His intelligence was in no way in concern, but his perform ethic was suspect.) Nicely, to everyone’s surprise, he buckled down and pulled it off. Good information, appropriate?

Completely wrong. For the reason that now we possess beneath our roof — the place our toddlers rest — a 3-foot-extensive boa constrictor that will, in time, likely mature to be 9 ft. Grant named him Reggie right after the pet snake in “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Dropped Ark.” I really do not enjoy snakes, and my wife downright loathes them, but in this article we are, spending the value for making an attempt to be superior, loving mom and dad. Our 5-yr-aged likes to hold him, and our youngest states, in her adorable 3-year-aged voice, that he’s “soooo cute.” We’re possessing her eyes checked soon.

Anyway, again to Holy 7 days. Exhausted from cleaning and repairing and tending to ill folks, I went to bed early on Great Friday even though the rest of the relatives are living-streamed Tenebrae. I woke up around midnight to some commotion and panic. Reggie escaped — for actual this time, not like on April Fool’s Working day — and he was nowhere to be uncovered.

We were being just hours absent from Olivia and Alex pulling in the driveway. From midnight until eventually 4 a.m. on Holy Saturday, we tore apart our meticulously clean up dwelling. We taken out each and every one item from each solitary closet, and we pulled out couches and televisions and beds and bookcases and fridges and washers and dryers. He was long gone, and we were extra than a minimal on edge. Just about every qualified on each internet site we go through and movie we watched mentioned the exact same detail: He’ll appear out … at some point, but it could be a few months.

We went to mattress with the dwelling — and our nerves — in tatters, and woke up early and set points back in purchase. Olivia did appear household, apprehensively, and we experienced an extraordinary weekend even with our fears that Reggie would pop out of a cabinet or from beneath a sofa cushion.

But regardless of the nervousness, the lesson wasn’t missing on me. From time to time, never we all have to have to peek into the dark, cobwebbed corners of our life and corral the evil that may be lurking? As a metaphor, it sounds good. In truth, maybe not so much.

Reggie was uncovered a handful of times later on, curled up in a person of the milk crates that his enclosure sits on. To paraphrase Pope St. John Paul II: We are an Easter individuals, and on that day, alleluia was most certainly our tune.

Scott Warden is taking care of editor of Our Sunday Visitor.