So I was trying to think of something to write related to the class, and the more I thought of it, I thought that it would be good to write about Easter. In my last post, I wrote about how the face that we are now in Holy Week, there are more and more shows on television insisting that Christ had a family. In this post, I will try and offer some of my own reflections on the family at Easter.
In most families, when you think of Easter, you think of family, hams, lambs, or whatever food your family enjoys. This is what my family enjoys, and still does to this day. However, I am in my own world on Easter, the liturgical world, with my different family. For me. Easter is not gathering with family sitting on a couch and talking, but working. For me, Easter is not a time of rest, but a time of rejoicing in the Resurrection of Christ. I begin on Palm Sunday, and don’t stop until Easter Monday. Most people I know are going home this week to spend Easter with their families. Me?? I will be spending Easter break at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. I will be with my second family.
I greatly enjoy it, and will miss it big time when I graduate. I will miss the craziness of the sacristy before Mass on Thursday, trying to get the right number of chairs out in the sanctuary, darting between tv cameras to do this. I will miss the solemness of Good Friday, and the darkness of Holy Saturday. I will miss the orchestra during the Great Easter Vigil, and the Washington Brass at Cardinal Wuerl’s Mass on Easter Sunday. I will miss it all, but, like all things, we need to move on. I will find my new normal for the Triduum. Will I be darting between cameras, while trying to count priests and handing out Conference, Sorgente, or DiCocco? Probably not. Actually, hopefully not! So, here is to my last Triduum at the shrine. My last Holy Thursday Mass with the Nuncio, my Last Good Friday Service with Msgr. Rossi, and my last Holy Saturday Mass with the shrine choir and orchestra. Say what you want about the Shrine, but if there is one thing that we do well, it is the Triduum.
So, wherever you may be, whether with your biological family or your adopted family, with friends or coworkers, remember that Easter is the most sacred time of year, and no matter what, no matter who you may be with, you are with family, if only for a day. We may be like Simon Peter and turn are backs and deny or shun family for one reason or another; we may be like Judas Iscariot and sell them out for something worthless. But we are with family. So, whether you look forward to your family holidays, or can’t stand them, remember that they are your family, and no matter how much you may despise them at the second, your family will always be there. We are all Simon Peters from time to time, denying each other, remember that we are with family.
My prayers to you all for a blessed Holy Week and Easter Season, and remember, that no matter what may be happening, let us rejoice as one big family in the Risen Lord.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia!
