An Easter Play

Driving to early Thursday morning mass, I decided to change the CD, and reached into the car console and pulled one out and put it in.  It was one I hadn’t played in a long while, and suddenly I found new meanings in the songs, and the story of the play they were from:  Man of LaMancha.

The lead character of the play imagined himself a knight, Don Quixote, the Man of LaMancha, who goes out into the world to fight all wrongs --- to make the world a better place.  Initially, everyone thought he and his words and actions were nuts.  Listening to songs, however, I perceived an image of Jesus, and even my own life of late.  Don Quixote has a friend in the play, Sancho, who acts as his squire and follows him around, but when asked why admits he doesn’t know, “but I like him.”  And his answer reminded me of the apostles, and myself, following Jesus.

The responsible authorities in the play, the padre and the duke (and even his own family) don’t understand what he is doing.  And neither do the prisoners/muleteers at the inn where he stops, and spots the local whore, Aldonza.  He immediately looks at Aldonza with eyes of love, and sees a thing of beauty, “a fair maiden” he says, and he calls her by a new name, Dulcinea (even as God did this to special people He saw) --- and then she REALLY doesn’t understand him.  “My name is Aldonza!”  He tells this lowest of the low that he loves her, and would fight to the death for her.  As the play progresses, eventually, reluctantly, Aldonza begins to change; she does see value in herself and in her life; she is loved.  At one point she decides to fight with the knight against her former way of life, but it is a difficult battle, and her friends in that life don’t want to let her go.  But at the end, she stands by the knight’s dying bed and calls to him, and reminds him her name, the name he called her, is Dulcinea.  And she says to him, “My Lord!” Looking back over the events of his life, as reminded by her, he says “it seemed as if a dream.”  His life and death (Jesus’) are also hard to believe.

And then there is the closing song of the play, which summarizes the story and the purpose of every life, as Jesus taught us through His:  To Dream the Impossible Dream

To Dream the Impossible Dream

To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go,
To right the unrightable wrong,
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right,
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest,
That my heart will be peaceful and calm,
When I’m layed to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To fight the unbeatable foe
To reach the unreachable star.

Right now, God seems to have put some people in my life, and has said to me: Help them.  And in my commitment to do so, I feel the words of that song.  The foes to my efforts are many; the sorrows of those I need to help are many, as are mine in my progress.  The fight is wearing.  But this is my quest; I will not assume my success, but trust in His.  I shall try not to question or pause, but …

And despite the struggles, I know I must go on, for then: “My heart will lie peaceful and calm, when I’m layed to my rest.”

This is the Easter Story.  Because of what Jesus did, there now is a peace and calm after death; because of His death we have eternal life, where there will be no more struggles, no more sorrows, and no more weariness --- “If I’ll only be true to Thy glorious quest.”

All of us are an Aldonza, or perhaps a Sancho.  Sometimes we do need encouragement to go on, and perhaps someone to fight at our side.  God selected that CD for me now to strengthen me and my trust in Him, to encourage me to continue to fight for those in need He has put in my life.  He died for me; my quests and fights are but a small thing compared to the battle He fought, and won for us.  His Passion should give all of us the courage to go on, “no matter how hopeless.”

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Later, on Thursday morning, I read these prayers and Psalms, which offered me further encouragements:

If God is on our side, who can be against us? (Rom 8:31)

He indeed is the shield
of all who make him their refuge.
For who is God but the Lord?
Who is a rock but our God?
The God who girds me with strength
and makes the path safe before me.

I pursued and overtook my foes,
never turning back till they were slain.

Praise be the God who saves me;
the God who gives me redress,
and subdues people under me.
You saved me from my furious foes.
So I will praise you, Lord, among the nations;
I will sing a psalm to your name.  (Ps 18)

I have written before how have three movies I always watch during Holy Week, and also Credo, the video of JPII’s funeral accompanied with songs by Andrea Bocelli.  They all remind me of Christ’s Passion.  I think I shall add this CD, Man of LaMancha, to my Holy Week rituals, to help me remember, and never forget, what this week is all about.

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As I re-read and finalized these words, it is 5AM Saturday morning.  I am subbing at the adoration chapel for a man I do not know; it seemed strange that he called me.  Driving up to the chapel I continued to listen to the Man of LaMancha CD, and then I saw the car I have so often seen of late, and the decal on its side window: God wants His world back; we need to help Him.  And I knew who was inside.  I saw her there, sitting alone.  She was the one who a few weeks back came up to me in church and said: “I think God wants me to help you.”  And after I described the woman and son I am trying to help, who are deeply depressed and living in filth, she said she’d be willing to talk to the woman about depression, and her own battles with it and the woeful life she lived, before she met Jesus.  She would give them hope.

The woman I now see before me in this chapel told me her name when we first met, but with the words of the songs I just heard still echoing in my head, I believe I shall now think of her as “Dulcinea.”