Ash Wednesday is not the norm

April 12th and tonight I showered with the window wide open - what a pleasure! It's just going down into the forties now. 

I am preoccupied lately, and find it hard to come here and say something. So I read now and then, and share when it speaks to me. 

"One Ash Wednesday I was motoring up the A1 on my way to give a lecture. Intending to listen to the news, I turned on the radio and heard with joy the familiar strains of Allegri's Miserere. It was quite beautiful. Unfortunately, reception was marred by my having to pass under a series of bridges, and you know how that acts like a dam in the flow of the music.
  Such music and song, superbly performed, raises the spirit and lifts the thoughts into a world of pure beauty where it is good to rest and just be there. Experiences like this are happy reminders that the journey through life, often dull and monotonous like driving on a motorway, is tolerable if the end of the journey will bring happiness and fulfillment. They are pleasant reminders, too, that Ash Wednesday is not the norm. Easter Sunday is."

                                            - Cardinal Basil Hume, from The Mystery of the Cross