Holy Saturday 2019

On the morning of Holy Saturday, Chris and I "divided to conquer." I went to church with three children where I led the youth in making 1,800 personalized Easter cards to go with the meals our parish assembled for the homeless. My guidance is so small, I feel like they would all do fine without me!

John volunteered in the kitchen assembling the meals.

Back at home, Chris and three kids made deviled eggs for our Easter potluck.

I came home, assembled our symbolic Easter foods, and Chris went to church with four of the kids for the Blessing of Easter baskets, which is something the children always enjoy. They asked why almost everyone in attendance was elderly? Where were all the children?

With everyone reunited, we changed our crown of thorns into a crown of gemstones to represent Jesus in heaven.

Plus we stuffed plastic eggs with candy for Sunday's egg hunt!

It was time to cook our fairly simple but fancier-than-normal meal, even though our eldest would miss it since he had to be at church 3.5 hours ahead of time for a pizza-and-wings party and an altar server training.

Meal plan

• Ham
• Sweet potato casserole
• Pasta
• Green beans with almonds
• Dinner rolls

Chris and oldest three went to Easter Triduum vigil Mass followed by a sweet reception and arrived home at nearly one in the morning.

How did Lent go? Various family members made various, individual sacrifices, and some were more successful than others. Regretfully, I do not feel that my Lent was very fruitful, honestly, but in one area of a whole-family sacrifice I saw great fruits: We gave up all secular (non-religious) television and movies, including on Sundays. The children became very accustomed to watching only saint or holy shows, down to the three-year-old. He would ask me, "Can I watch a saint show?" We also watched less TV, although I fully reconized that I'm in a good stage to do that (not pregnant, no newborn, not chronically ill). We would regularly go days and days without anyone turning on the television, and the more I cheerfully said 'no,' the more they stopped badgering, then stopped asking altogether, and they really started doing more activities, such as board games, card games, artwork, and (even more) reading. I also engaged my children more because to say 'no' to the little crew watching TV while I prepared dinner usually meant my bringing them into the kitchen and letting them cook with me.

At the end of Lent, I queried the older set of children (not needing the opinions of the children six and under :) and they experssed that they have actually enjoyed the peace of only shows on holy subjects. It has been so good not to binge watch silly, secular cartoons, even if supposedly non-offensive to our faith.

May I offer a collection of 74-so-far movie and television reviews written by me and a couple of other ladies who are trying hard to embrace an orthodox and traditional Catholic viewer's perspective? See Movie Reviews from a Traditional Catholic Perspective on my page Worthwhile Watching.