Holy Week

or otherwise known as  If you need me I will be at Church this week.


It is officially Holy Week here. To me this is the most marvelous week of the year. I love all of it. Palm Sunday with the kids holding their palms up as high as they can. The reading of our Lord’s Passion. It is hard for me to pick a day that I prefer over another. Growing up I was a church rat so to speak. The scenario was if mom wasn’t at home she was at the rectory. As a kid growing up we spent our fair share of time there, especially during Holy Week. Seems we are following in her footsteps. Today is Palm Sunday. And it seems like it was packed. We had mass of course and read the passion of the Lord. I have long term memories of reading the Passion. As a child I could not and would not read aloud the parts where the people are supposed to respond “crucify him”. I so loved Jesus Christ that I did not want him to die. Well as and adult I realize that he not only needed to die for us but KNEW he would have to die.  He chose to die for us.
In contrast to Palm Sunday mass, the parish Easter Egg Hunt for the children seemed to me to be anticlimactic. But I am reminded that when Christ entered Jereslum on Palm Sunday it was celebratory. So perhaps it is fitting that the children are celebrating.
Tonight my dh is assisting with a Tenebrae Service. Traditionally, this service is celebrated on the three days before Easter. In order that it may be made more accessible to the people our cathedral offers a Tenebrae Service to start off Holy Week. It is a moving ceremony, part of the Liturgy of the Hours, matins and lauds.  What symbolism as the church plunges into darkness.  The first time I attended Tenebrae I was so moved. Tonight I have sent my two girls with the youth of the Parish to attend. They are soo excited to go to a grownup service.  I can’t wait to hear their reactions. It was decided that ‘the Governor”  was too young to go this year since it is on a school night.