Hallelujah To Ya'! It was a Glorious Easter Day!
Happy and Holy Easter! It is now Easter Sunday night and needless to say, I am exhausted and may be entering a sugar coma! The Sacred Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday Easter Vigil) was glorious with perfect temperatures, blue skies and huge crowds. But it all was a lot of work. From preparing homilies and liturgies to decorating to working out logistics of each day. So many things to remember and do. In the end, you collapse with a smile on your face. here are some shots and memories from this past week:
The Chrism Mass (where the bishop of a diocese blesses all the oil of the Sick for anointing, the Oil of Catechumens and the Sacred Chrism used at baptisms/confirmations/ordinations for the year and priests renew their vows of fidelity) took place on Wednesday night starting at 7:30 pm at the Cathedral. Here is a selfie of Fr. Gerard, my associate, and myself in front of the entrance (1). The old cathedral of Parramatta (my diocese here) had had a major fire and the windows were ruined. A new, larger wing was added off the old cathedral and new stained glass windows were added. I am not sure the windows really work with the old building. They remind me of essence of kiwi fruit for some reason. Here are the priests of the diocese gathered before the entrance (2). You can see one of the windows glowing in the background.
Here's the main worship space dominated by this large sculpture over the altar (3). Our bishop preaching from his chair (4). Here we are lined up to leave after receiving the oils, with the awful crucifix covered in the background (5). (Would that they would leave the purple cloth over it all year long—that would be something to celebrate!)
On the way out I noticed a traveling exhibit of the Shroud of Turin. It's a color copy to scale of the Shroud said to have covered the body of Christ as he lay in the tomb (6). Here is a detail of the Shroud that covered the face (7). It is very, very faint but you can see a stain showing his head sideways with his forehead on the upper right center and with his chin on the lower left center. Hard to explain, just look at the image and see his head sideways.
Here is the worship space at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church decorated for Holy Thursday (8-9). We had a moonlit procession to our altar of repose. Unfortunately, I have no photos of that.
On Good Friday morning, our youth group does a Stations of the Cross Passion Play at our Shrine of the Holy Innocents (10). Nice number show up and each year it seems to get bigger and bigger (11). Here are some of the actors with the youth leaders and their pastor. (12; Can you pick him out?) I tried on a Roman soldier's feathered helmet and did a selfie with the youth leader (13).
Holy Saturday night, we brought 11 new members into the church. Here is a shot of the group with their priests, teachers and sponsors/godparents (14). One family of five from Malaysia joined; you can see the three boys and their father in the center (all dark skinned and dark haired). Their mother is standing two persons to the right of me in the shot dressed in brilliant white. This is a shot of me with the choir (15). I married Artem, the selfie photographer, and Marie (straight behind him in the shot) late last year. It's one of my earlier blog entries. Artem is from Russia and Marie is from the Philippines. They are a cute couple.
These are images of the church on Easter Sunday morning (16-27). I'm still not happy with the flower situation here. We are deep into fall which means no lilies, no hydrangea, no tulips in bloom. Nada! I decided to go for artificial and then when the flowers arrived about a week to Easter, I wasn't really sure of how to arrange them. I left it in the hands of some of the parishioners. It's alright but I am still not satified. Atthe last minute I went out to buy some real plants to add to the mix. Again, they're alright, but I ran out of time. Next year!
The big flowr arrangements are real flowers (18-19) and come from a parishioner's flower shop. We get fresh ones each week. That's about all they last, sadly. Here are some of the fake arrangements (20). And the Easter Lamb (21-22) that I found in a graden shop. I love his little face. So sweet. A parishioner sewed the Easter banner and another made the stand that sits behind him. These angels normally sit up by the crucifix(23-24). I had them redone as they were peeling and chipped. Some of the other satuary with fake flower bundles (25-27).
Later on Easter Sunday, we went over to Pina's for a huge Easter lunch. I didn't take a picture of the spread but the food covered two very long tables. Here are some of the desserts (hence the sugar coma) afterwards (28-32). Finally the Easter bunny showed up to give out chocolate (33). The seflie is (l to r) Mr. Peter Cottontail, Pina and myself. Happy Easter…now to rest!