I once purchased a guitar from a homeless man.
I don’t know with confidence that he was homeless, but he had signs of premature aging, darkened skin from spending much time outdoors, and stained clothing.
His guitar was worn and smelled like cigarettes, and I don’t remember how we came to the point where he was offering to sell it to me, but looking at the photo we took together afterward, we each look like we got the better end of the deal.
I invited the man to sign his name on the guitar with a permanent marker before strumming a few poorly tuned strings and moving on, instrument slung over my already burdened shoulders.
This was in Krakow, Poland, just before the start of World Youth Day in 2016. It wasn’t my first pilgrimage there; in 2012 a sister and two friends and I (all Polish speakers) chose to travel to Poland for a few weeks of self-guided travel and prayer.
Our rules were to pack only what we could carry on our backs, to go to daily Mass in a different church each day, to be open to the Holy Spirit’s direction in our travels, and to sing everywhere.
Our pilgrimage took us to Wadowice – the birthplace of St. John Paul II – and many other sites that stood out to us for their connection to history, holiness, or both. A brand-new Basilica of Divine Mercy had just been built in Krakow and we eagerly toured the site with hundreds of other pilgrims, gazing at the immense modern structure and pausing silently to view the vestments Pope John Paul II had been wearing when he was shot in St. Peter’s Square.
It was carefully hung on display, still bearing dark red stains.
Finding the main church too crowded, we sought peace in one of the smaller chapels. Amazed and embarrassed by the stunning acoustics, we briefly asked a security guard if it was okay to sing in such a beautiful place. He looked at us like we were silly, but said of course singing in chapels is permitted.
We sang a Taize song without instruments. Four voices mingling, repeating a short, powerful refrain, we felt something much deeper than what we could see with our eyes or hear with our ears. We left that basilica a little changed from when we had first walked in.
During that pilgrimage, I discovered an immense joy in the ability to drop into any Catholic church, any time of day. Every holy site was ours, every Mass was open, every church was home. I have cultivated a habit of dropping into churches anytime my heart moves me and my husband knows if we pass a church while on a road trip, I’m very likely to ask him to pull over, if even for a brief moment.
I’ve been reminiscing about these memories because for the last year, many Catholics have been completely unable to experience these types of moments.
Amid lockdowns and closures we’ve been barred from flying to places of spiritual significance, participating in Masses with great crowds, and bursting into song in churches or religious sites. Even giving something to a panhandler doesn’t feel quite the same when your mask covers your smile and you wonder if lingering to ask his name or say a kind word will make anyone around you uncomfortable.
Anyone who wants to set foot in a church has to navigate registrations, masks, and wait lists wondering how many people can get in, if you’re standing too close, or if you sanitized your hands enough.
If I’m honest, it’s wearing me down.
I know we can worship God everywhere, and in the last year I have reflected deeply on what it means to “pray without ceasing.” But physical space is only one thing: the rules, confusion, and fear can lead us to distraction and cheapen our experiences, too. There must be a way to be welcoming and safe as we open up again.
I hope and pray someday soon we will be able to be spontaneous in our prayer and joy again. To listen to the urgings of the Holy Spirit in our hearts without nagging thoughts in the backs of our minds about when to wear or take off our masks. To forget insecurities or rules about singing in public and just let a song lift our spirits.
To shake hands with a homeless man and think more about our shared love of music than which pocket we packed our hand sanitizers in.
