This Sunday is Quasimodo Sunday. Really? A Sunday in our church year named after a hunchback bell ringer at Notre Dame? What symbols on the paramounts do we use for that?
Actually 'quasi modo' are the Latin words which begin the traditional Introit verse (Introit is latin for entrance- as in the beginning of the Lutheran service) 1 Peter 2:2 which says, 'as newborn babies desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby,'. So, literally, quasi modo means "as if in [this] manner".
In the book, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', Quasimodo was found abandoned on the doorsteps of Notre Dame on the Sunday after Easter, 1467. As Hugo wrote: 'He baptized his adopted child and called him Quasimodo; whether it was that he chose thereby to commemorate the day when he had found him, or that he meant to mark by that name how incomplete and imperfectly molded the poor little creature was. Indeed, Quasimodo, one-eyed, hunchbacked, and bow-legged, could hardly be considered as anything more than an almost.'
I think it would have be cool to use this 1831 Victor Hugo character as the theme for the Sunday after Easter. Today the name Quasimodo has become synonymous with a courageous heart beneath a grotesque exterior. I think that can describe us after our Easter salvation- rough looking people, sinful people even, yet people with a courageous heart based on Jesus' saving work.
We could use our courageous hearts to be post-Easter bell ringers, calling people back to the church and the sanctuary of the Gospel. In the book Quasimodo rescues Esmeralda from the gallows- from certain death. She finds safety in the church under the 'law of sanctuary'.
Sadly, the book does not have a happy ending (unlike some of the movies based on the book). Quasimodo can't save Esmeralda when the priest gives her back to the king's people. He then pushes the priest to his death, and goes to the graveyard to lie next to his dead love until he starves to death. Maybe Quasimodo Sunday is best celebrated afterall as a reminder of 1 Peter 2:2 as noted above.
Maybe instead 'Got Milk?' should be our theme. On this Sunday after Easter let us return to church to get fed- laying aside our grotesque traits outlined in verse 1: deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. It would be kinda cool to have everyone leave church with a spiritual milk mustache. Some churches have Ash Wednesday, some could have Milk Mustache Sunday!
Anyway, back to Quasimodo Sunday. The good news is that each of us, even though we too are a 'poor little creature', is loved by God with a great Easter love- on this Sunday and every Sunday and every day in between. May God grant us the courageous heart we need to share this message wherever we can, to proclaim it from the bottom of our heart or maybe even in storybook fashion, from the top of a belltower.
Blest Regards,
kp
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