Good Friday 2014

The first hummingbird--of many, we hope--showed up today,
so we freshened the two feeders.

This morning, we 'divided and conquered,' with Chris taking the two older children to help the Missionaries of the Poor fill Easter baskets for needy children while I stayed home with the two littler ones to do the baking of desserts for our parish's meals for the home-bound. Despite my best intentions to bake earlier than on a day of fasting, yesterday was simply too jam-packed. So here I was again this year, fasting and hungry--I'm so weak at fasting--and having to repeat to myself pathetically, "Don't lick the frosting off the spatula, don't lick the frosting . . ." With the desserts due at church at eight in the morning tomorrow, there was no more time to put off this task! Next year: organize time even better or prepare hams (not tempting) instead!

My little baking companion!

We prayed the Stations of the Cross at home instead of at our parish, but we did go in for the three o'clock Passion of Our Lord. We'd quite forgotten that that is a two-hour service, so I fumbled by forgetting to feed the children snacks before we went and by not preparing dinner ahead of time. The service ended at our normal dinner time with a drive home remaining and nothing even started in the kitchen, so Chris rescued us by taking us to the nearby deli. I was embarrassed to be going out to a restaurant on Good Friday of all days--even if we were sticking with simple salad, soup, and so forth--so felt in good company to see five other parish families there doing the same thing!

Hard-boiling the eggs for dying on Holy Saturday

Chris and I ended the day after the children were asleep by watching Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." This was a very good way for me to remember Our Lord's passion (especially watched at night with a dismal storm going outside) as compared to attending the Passion service in the afternoon. I hadn't watched the movie in years and kept thinking to myself during the film that watching it is like the Ignatian method of putting yourself there, in the scene, seeing so many details I'd never considered before. I still think the family should attend the Passion service, of course, but my experience is one of being in the cry room (every week for seven years now) with my one-year-old running around screaming with joy with another one-year-old, laughing, hitting the walls to see how much noise he can make, dragging chairs about. And then add in my three-year-old (quiet and still if she's in the pews, but a wreck if she's around two entirely untrained one-year-olds in the cry room) and there was no way I could follow along with more than about one occasional sentence in the missal before having to leap up and stop someone from doing something. At this season in my life, church services feel a bit more like an aerobic hour or two within a great din of noise from which I can hear an adult talking far in the background . . . and I bet he's saying something wise and useful! Thus, watching "The Passion" at home in silence was so powerful to me. I make a note for myself next year to watch it on Palm Sunday going into Holy Week or on Maundy Thursday going into the Triduum, so that it will have the effect of helping my mind become even more somber during this holiest of times.