Easter, Family and Fun

This year for the first time we were able to do the traditional 7 Church Hop on Holy Thursday.  In the past our parish has been in a more remote location so it has only been possible to visit two or three parishes at best.  This year, since our new parish is in a much more populated area, we were able to visit seven churches.  It was beautiful!  I can't wait to do it again next year.  Ms 23 yo had to work, so I took pictures of all the churches we visited and texted them to her so she could be with us in spirit.  Here are three of my favorites.

Our parish

The Cathedral

While I love the convenience of taking pictures on my phone, I realize now how difficult it is to keep my hands steady.  This then requires many more tries before I get one I like.

 Good Friday we went to the afternoon service, went home and had our penitential fish fillets and not so penitential hot cross buns, then colored our eggs, which proved to be a bit too rowdy for the day.

Holy Saturday is always such a hard day.  You feel the joy of Easter approaching but yet it is supposed to be a day of silence and waiting.  Nothing silent went on at our house.  A lot of baking and cleaning did.  We tried to keep it to a quiet roar.

Easter Sunday was glorious, as to be expected.  Our parish is beautiful on a normal day, but was decked out nicely for Easter.

 Our boys are part of a Historic Altar Boy society and they got to serve in historic looking cassocks on Easter.  It really added to the visual beauty of the Mass.  Here they are looking like superheroes. 

Saving the world...one Mass at a time!

 After taking lots of pictures, we headed back home for a nice, quiet dinner with my mom, dad and uncle.

Lest we loose our celebratory spirit too soon, my youngest son celebrated his 10th birthday yesterday.  

More good food and cake!  Now we are all double-digits!  Oh how bittersweet.

While this is our Easter break off from school this week, the weather is not being very cooperative so I think it will be a laid-back, restful kind of week around here.  Next week, of course, looks to be gorgeous.  Oh well, that will be incentive to get the work done early, won't it?

God Bless!
 

Happy Easter!

ALLELUIA!!

HE IS RISEN!

God Bless!

It's Easter Monday!

Alleluia! 

I love the Easter season.  Things are finally warming up outside, the grass is green and there is so much joy in the church.  Going to Mass for these 8 days is like a really long Easter Sunday Mass with all of the pomp and circumstance...and beautiful flowers!

We had a full day yesterday; our traditional Easter breakfast with homemade Easter bread, cold Polish sausage and hard boiled eggs.  Then, off to Mass where we had a packed church (something we haven't had in a few years).  We ran back home and washed all of the breakfast dishes (best.move.ever!) and then off to my mil's house for a very yummy dinner of ham, cheesy potatoes (LOVE those) and asparagus.  Oh, and of course, lots of sweet stuff.

We even managed to get in a photo shoot!

 


Hope your Easter was joy filled, too!

God Bless!

 

Alleluia! He is Risen!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!!

God Bless!

Easter Joy

This past Friday we attended the monthly Evening of Recollection that is hosted by the priests of Miles Christi.  It is a wonderful evening full of Mass, Adoration, benediction, spiritual talks and confession.  

While I was there I was pondering the Easter Season.  As Catholics, we know all about Lent...we count down the days until our penance and sacrificing can end in that Easter Joy!  We know what it means to give things up, do extra things for others, give alms and add in some additional prayers.

What I have a hard time with is the 50 days of Easter.  It is longer than Lent and full of the joy of the Risen Christ.  Unfortunately, I find it harder to "do" because there isn't really a prescribed way of celebrating it for 50 days. I find the octave is easy to celebrate because you still see the visible signs of Easter around your house and at the altar in church.  For at least eight days we're still picking Easter grass out of interesting places.  


The last 10 days of the Easter season are easy, too.  With Ascension Thursday (even though we celebrate it on Sunday now :( and the nine days leading up to the great feast of Pentecost, there's a lot of excitement building!


I talked to one of the priests about it and he said that these days are all about a spiritual joy which is why it is so much harder to celebrate because it is not something you can easily see and do.  It is more like something you personally need to maintain.  As an aside, I would like to mention that Father did point out that eating a lot during the entire Easter Season really isn't the best way to keep that joy alive.  Darn, eating is how we celebrate best!


With eating not being an option, I think the best way to keep that Easter Joy alive is through prayer.  Saying the Regina Caeli before dinner every night is one thing we all enjoy doing.  We keep our "Alleluia" pictures hung up on the fireplace mantle the entire season, too.  The Alleluia really is a great way to feel joyful, even if it is only momentary. As always, participating in daily Mass helps to keep us involved in the liturgical life of the church.  


I welcome other ideas on how to keep that joy alive during this time, just in case you have any to share!  It is so easy to let the burdens of life get you down and forget that we are an Easter people and we should be radiating right now!  Pray, pray and pray some more...ask for the grace to be joyful...practice being joyful even when you don't feel much like it...all great ways to keep the Easter season alive in our hearts.

Happy Easter Monday and Other Things...

Here is the now Mr. Seven Year Old using "the force" to blow out his birthday candle this weekend.  Notice the Star Wars theme on the cake top, too.  In all of his 7 years of wisdom he imparted the following theology to me this morning at Mass:

"Mommy, you know when the priest says 'lift your hearts to the Lord'?   You can lift your heart up and still live because you aren't really lifting your heart up but your love."

Yes, son, you're right!  Lift that love up!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday.  Now enjoy the full Octave of Easter!  8 full days of celebration!!!!




Thanks to Ms 18 yo for my new header picture :)

Alleluia! He is Risen!

The Joy of Easter

As I was sitting in Mass on Easter Sunday, I was looking around at all of the beautiful decorations and relishing in singing the Gloria again when I began to notice something that bothered me. Here it was, the most joyful and glorious day of the year and if you looked around at people's faces, you'd be hard pressed to realize that. Not many people around us were belting it out like we were. Many of them just had blank stares as we went through the remainder of the Mass.

Fast forward to Monday when we went to Noon Mass at a local church. The priest there gives wonderful homilies and today he was on a role about how we must, as Catholics in today's crazy world, live like the Apostles and the first Christians did. He talked about how we have been commissioned like the Apostles to spread the Good News, not so much by what we say, but by how we act.

Are people drawn to us because of our peace and joy? Or do we radiate tension and unrest? Not, as he said, that we have to be skipping and singing all the time and acting as if nothing bad ever happens to us, but when bad things do happen, how do we handle them? Are we at peace or do we complain and take out our anger on those that we meet?

Father mentioned that this peaceful, joyful attitude is especially important for the religious. He related a story about how during his first assignment as a priest, he was at a parish with an elderly, grumpy priest. Having this experience made him realize that he did NOT want to end up like this grumpy old priest. Father said he told God that if he was going to end up like this priest in his old age that he wanted to die young!

I found it interesting that my thoughts from Sunday and the homily from Monday were so intimately related. I had been thinking about what I'd like people to "read" on my family's faces when they look at us. Do they see a family that looks unhappy or tense? Or do they see a bunch of faces that, for the most part, show contentment?

I know that not every day is a good day, or even close to that. I know that sometimes people go for quite a stretch where they struggle to retain (or regain) their peace and joy. But if overall we, as Catholic Christians, cannot exude those good qualities to others in the world, how are we to ever show the world the beauty of following so great a God? How will we ever attract people to the Lord, as the first Christians did, if we don't show people His love?

This has been on my heart a lot lately, especially since the devil has been working overtime to bring strife and division to our families and Catholic homeschooling communities. If we cannot even love each other and show forgiveness and compassion to those that are closest to us, how on earth are we going to show the goodness of the Lord to those in the world around us?

We have been commissioned to bring others to Christ. We have been commissioned to turn this world around and it must start within each one of us. If our hearts do not rest in the Lord, we will not be able to live out that peace and joy that Father was speaking of today. Instead, our faces will reflect tension and strife; something which will not attract others to us.

So as we begin this joyful Easter season, my prayer is that we can take up our mission with a heart bent on turning this world around by radiating the love that Our Lord has for each one of us to everyone we come in contact with; starting with those closest to us!