Has it really been two weeks since my last blog?

I reckon it has, indeed, been two whole weeks since I posted.  That means since before Easter.  WOW!

Good Friday is always an important day for me.  While I can continue to say that I was overall pleased to let others do the work with Lent, Holy Week, and Easter after 25 years, I must admit just how different the experience was.

When I arrived at the church for the 3:00pm Commemoration of the Lord's Passion on Good Friday, I was confused as I walked in because the Stations of the Cross were still being prayed.  They were barely over half way through the devotion with no more than 10 minutes before the 3pm service was supposed to begin.  In other words, it did not start on time.

The beginning of the service is always a favorite of mine as we the clergy prostrate ourselves before the altar.  Lying face down on the ground is a powerful statement of our commitment to Christ.  I have been prostrate on carpeted sanctuary floors, and have been on marble floors.  They each carry their own difficulties, as well as their own advantages.  The carpet is more difficult to maneuver on with the garments we wear, while being much warmer than the marble.  Then the reverse is also true.  The marble is easier to maneuver.  The carpet can get way to warm even for the 30-60 seconds we lie there.  Nevertheless, that is truly one thing I can say I missed about not being involved this year.

The size of the church (much smaller than most of my assignments, maybe the size of St. Lawrence O'Toole) plays a part in how the service goes either smoothly or very clunky.  The reason I say things could get clunky is at the veneration of the cross.  Ideally, there is one cross that is used for people to either kiss or use some other act of veneration for the vehicle of our salvation.  Some larger places in the past have had at least two, three, or four crosses to keep things moving because of the number of people in attendance.

I decided not to attend the Easter Vigil this year.  I just could not handle another 30 minute homily AND the number of baptisms the parishes were doing.  I guess maybe I could have gone.  C'est la vie.

Easter originally was looking kind of bleak and likely to be lonelier than many of the other days of this time away; however, God IS good all the time, right?  I went to the early Mass at one of the parishes I've been attending.  The cantor I've missed all of Lent was back to begin with.  I don't know why she was off for the season.  Maybe she is needed to sing the Gloria, but she is very good.  I was very pleased with that.  Also, while I did not see anyone I recognized from the previous three months, I happened to make eye contact with someone at the sign of peace a few pews behind me.  He probably didn't think much of it either.  But I decided to go to breakfast on my own after Mass.  The restaurant was not quite open yet, and while I was waiting, the gentleman from church came up to the restaurant balcony area too.  Once they opened, he and I had breakfast together.  It was so pleasant.  It really set the tone for the rest of the day.  All the time, GOD IS GOOD!

Divine Mercy weekend I had gone back to my routine of going to that parish I was just talking about on Saturday evening, and the cathedral on Sunday morning.  The cantor I like was at that Saturday evening Mass.  As a communion meditation, she sung one decade of the Divine Mercy prayer of St. Faustina.  Wow!  The cathedral was not as packed as many churches would normally be on Easter Sunday, but still a good crowd.  The homily, again, was way too long.

In the meantime, class has been great.  I finished my second project.  So the upcoming classes should not be bad.  The students are precisely what I needed them to be.  They are showing me that they actually do care about the future of how they will handle death and dying.  They have helped the whole class to discover how different cultures and religions handle death and dying, plus what their views of the afterlife are.  Class discussions are pretty lively.  A couple of students out of the 30 or so in the class are more vocal than others but that sort of thing is going to happen almost anywhere we go.