My Easter story

Hi All! I want to continue my brief post from yesterday to let you all know what a great few days I've had! Thursday night we attended the Holy Thursday mas at church and it was very beautiful. This service commemorates the Last Supper and Jesus' washing of his disciples feet. It was so humbling to see the priest was a dozen or so peoples feet. We were surprised by how many parishioners were in attendance since we'd been told not that many people come to these services.

Friday night was the Good Friday service and it was very moving. It had the Veneration of the Cross (which I had never seen) and the whole congregation come forward to bless the cross. Very touching to see the families carry in the cross, which represented their own cross to bear. Again, we were pleasantly surprised at how many people came.

Saturday night was the big one for me, the Easter Vigil. I'd been told not many come to this mass since it's so long, but it was packed! We started outside with the lighting of the Easter Fire and from the fire the Easter candle was lit. We went inside the church and found our seats (good thing we had reserved seating). First were the Old Testament readings. the baptisms were first in the Initiation part and I loved them! Our church's font is really beautiful. It normally only has water on the top tow levels above the floor, but for the Vigil the had water in the lower level just below the floor level. So all the the people getting baptised got a good soaking. It was so great to see the people that we've gotten to know through the process get baptised. Following baptisms, they asked all who had been baptised to come to the font to renew your baptismal promises. It was sort of organized chaos, but it gave the newly baptised time to change their clothes!

Next all of us candidates (those already baptised in another Christian faith) were called up to profess our faith and be confirmed. My husband was my sponsor as you may know and it was such a special experience to have him right beside me as I was confirmed. After Confirmation we brought forward the gifts (bread and wine) for the Eucharist and our first Holy Communion. We were up around the altar as Father prepared the gifts and it was very special to be able to see up close what happens.

(Small side story: Earlier that day we had a retreat where they explained exactly how to receive Eucharist and how to take the host and the wine and how to place your hands, what to say, etc. Well, they had us carrying candles after confirmation and didn't take them from us so we only had one free hand each. I was SO nervous I was going to drop the host as Father was putting it in every one's palms. Luckily I didn't, but how bad would that have been to drop your first communion?) So we had our first communion and then we were proclaimed Catholics! It was such a special night and really it didn't seem nearly as long as everyone had said it would be.

After church as dismissed it was good to see our Deacon (who presided over our wedding) and our sponsor couple. They were all so cute when they said they felt they had played a role in my conversion. I assure you they did! They are all such wonderful people we feel so blessed to know and have had them guide us along our journey together.

I hope you all had a truly blessed Easter no matter what you celebrate. I know this was one we will never forget!

P.S. I wish I had some pictures for you from Saturday night, but I forgot to take my camera with us. I'm super bummed that I didn't get any pics since it's a rare occasion hubby is in a suit.