That’s tomorrow’s name. Truly.

You heard it here first (unless, like me, you’ve been reading, ‘Mary was Her Life’ which is how I first heard of it.)

Google tells me that the day before Holy Thursday is called Spy Wednesday because that’s the day when Judas Iscariot made his deal, and started looking out for opportunities to betray Our Lord. Who knew?

Meanwhile, I had this conversation in a French class this week:

Young Person: Why isn’t there a class next week?

Me (suddenly bold): Because it’s Holy Thursday.

Young Person: What?

Me: It’s Holy Thursday. We have to be in church.

Young Person: Holy Thursday? Is that a thing?

I suddenly felt a gentle increase of my self-esteem, not because I’d referenced the Triduum in a secular context, but because I knew exactly what was meant by the words ‘Is that a thing?’ It’s like discovering that you’ve mastered another language.

***

For me, the great lesson of Holy Week thus far has been that I detest other people’s sins much more than I detest my own, which, quite frankly, I hardly detest at all. I mean, I do hope that one day I’ll find I’m neither nasty nor lazy, but I can’t help feeling that the day would come sooner if other people would stop doing wrong stuff. Imagine how much less annoyed we’d all be if no one ever did anything annoying! More importantly, imagine how much less hurt we’d all be if no one ever did anything hurtful! (Then, instead of me spending hundreds of hours in the confessional on the struggle to forgive, the hurter could just say ‘I’m sorry,’ and remove the struggle altogether!) It’s a beautiful plan.

This complaint reminds me of a time I spent with some boys, aged about seven, five and two. I told the two-year-old that he couldn’t stab the Korean barbecue with a large fork. He insisted that he could. I asserted myself. Then something terrifying happened. He hunched over, turned bright red, seemed to swell in the face and the arms as his skin went taut with rage, and, almost shaking, he exclaimed, “Upset me? Up seeet meeeee?!”

It seems a perfect image of my spiritual life.