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Spy Monday
Lent is one of the most important seasons on the Christian calendar. It is a time when folks give up small things in their own lives to remind them of the ultimate sacrifice. A time of self-reflection. A time for Spy Monday. Spy Monday? Yes. You may not know it, but it’s the Monday before Easter. Not to be confused with Easter Monday, which is the day after Easter. I had forgotten about the holiday for some years, but I was reminded when an old friend sent a missive last week and added, “Oh and Happy Spy Monday, Suzy…whenever it is.” When I was a child, one of my older siblings came home from the Catholic elementary school on the Monday before Easter and announced, “Sister Mary Whatever said that today is Spy Monday.” My mother had gone through Catholic grade school, Catholic high school and Catholic college, but never remembered the Monday of Holy Week having any special name or special significance. “Why is today called Spy Monday?” asked my mother doubtfully. “Sister said that this was the day that Judas spied on Jesus to see where he went so he could betray him later in the week. Judas secretly followed him. That’s why it’s called Spy Monday.” My mother was still dubious. So she called my father, also a product of Catholic schooling, and asked him. He’d never heard of it. She called my grandmother, who been raised a Methodist, but became an ardent Catholic convert. Grandma scoffed and said, “Somebody’s pulling your leg.” However, my sibling insisted that Sister Mary Whatever spoke quite authoritatively about Spy Monday. Rather than call a theological authority, the parish priest or even the nun who made the statement, my mother called the next-door neighbor woman, also a lifelong Catholic. The next-door neighbor joined my mom in the kitchen and they had a good laugh., a really good laugh. A tears running down their faces kind of laugh. They were so jolly at that point, the neighbor said, “Let’s drink a toast to Spy Monday” and trotted off to her basement next door for some homemade wine. This was LENT remember. And Lent in the early 1960s at that. When their respective husbands came home from work, the two women were laughing, eating chips and drinking wine. Their respective husbands were, of course, scandalized, because no liquor could be consumed during Lent, and furthermore, they were required to fast between meals. And even worse, neither of the women had made supper. That was 40 years ago. On that day, my mother cemented Spy Monday as a Wurtz family tradition. From then on, each Monday before Easter, my mother and her friends celebrated Spy Monday. In the early days, they’d drink a forbidden glass of wine and eat a few forbidden chips in the evening. My father used to count the number of awards my mother would have won for her Spy Monday oratories. (O.K., maybe it was more than one forbidden glass of wine.) Now these senior citizen friends live in different neighborhoods, and the Spy Monday crew settles for a much tamer lunch. But they still laugh a lot. We’re not selfish with our Wurtz family traditions. My mother and my siblings have passed the Spy Monday lore on to hundreds of people. (I don’t think my dad ever did any active advertising for the holiday, though. He’s still waiting for that supper.) You too can add this to your family calendar. The only way you get to celebrate Spy Monday is if a current practitioner (that would be me) tells you the story. Then you are free to take Spy Monday and celebrate as your own family and friends deem appropriate. So now that you know —it’s yours. Happy Spy Monday. Let me know how you celebrate it. My mom is always looking for new ideas.
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