Holy Saturday 2013

Joseph, hangin' out with Mama

Margaret getting a closer look

We made a paschal candle for home using the very simple plan offered at Catholic Icing. We plan to light the candle at dinner or perhaps during family Rosary each night during the Easter octave.

I made great effort this year to assemble not one but two Easter baskets (one a gift for our cloistered Poor Clare nuns) in the traditional Polish style, as described here. I pulled the children away from their outdoor play, digging in dirt, in the fresh, breezy weather. I gave the children a catechism lesson about the symbol represented by each type of food. I got the children cleaned up, coiffed, and loaded in the van. I had thought it strange that the church changed the time of the Blessing of Food this year to three o'clock when it had every year been at noon . . . .

You can guess the punch line: I had written the time down wrong, so we missed the blessing. The children were quite concerned that we couldn't eat food not blessed by the priest but we assured them that it would be okay!

I have no Easter basket picture with sibling #4 because he wouldn't stop crying. But I do have this cute pic of two "cowboys" taken earlier that morning!

My assistant while assembling the family Easter basket

I learned that traditionally Lent ends on Holy Saturday at vespers, around 4:00 p.m. This means that when I was assembling the candy-laden Easter baskets for the children, I could sample the candy for Quality Control purposes. After a long Lent without desserts, it's rather a surprise there was any candy remaining to put in the children's baskets after I got my mitts on it!

Before: beans

After: jelly beans!

My mom and her first grandchild John, March 2007

We began the Divine Mercy novena and chaplet, a prayer brought to us by Jesus through St. Faustina and particularly promoted by Bl. John Paul II. This year, the novena has special meaning for me as my mother died last year--in one sense, so unexpectedly--during the week of Divine Mercy. I was so shocked to find her and, after barely sleeping that night, made my way shell shocked to the 7:00 a.m. Mass at my former parish. I had only the company of my 13-month-old baby and a dear friend of my mother who rushed to stay with me that night, as my stepfather was in the hospital and my husband and children were at home 3,000 miles away. So I woke up and, as a Catholic, thought that the only place I could cling to some comfort was in a church, at the Mass. While driving there, I was able to call my friend T--- who I knew would be at the parish at the crack of dawn and she was able to find the priest as he was vesting and have my mother made his intention for the Mass which, mere hours after her passing, has great meaning to a Catholic. Then I pulled into my parking spot and who should pull in her car nose-to-nose with me at that moment but my maid of honor who didn't even know I had arrived in town the day before? Just when I needed a friend, I was able to collapse tearfully into A--'s surprised embrace. We walked into the church and I laid my eyes on the large banner of the Divine Mercy image hanging from the ambo and I was so comforted to think of my mom passing away during that particular week. So, praying the Divine Mercy novena when we are two weeks shy of the first anniversary of her death has a lot of meaning to me.

Well, it's not as fancy as I had envisioned, but this is the cute breakfast table that awaits the children when they wake!