Pulling out the stops

Here's a picture of our very lovely fourteen-year-old Aisling playing the recessional hymn at the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday. The hymn was "Christ Our Lord is Risen Today," a very nice and rousing traditional old hymn that is sure to pick you up out of the pew where you've been sitting for the past three hours, especially if it's played on the electronic piano's pipe organ setting.

With the volume turned up to a setting that could be labeled "Triumphant," if not just plain "Loud."

If the reaction of the people sitting in front of us was any indication, the sudden burst of sound was a bit of a shock, bursting forth as it did into the quiet church: I practically saw light between them and their seats. After their initial fright, they all obediently picked up their hymnals with trembling hands and sang along, once they found their voices.

If I could be allowed a moment of shameless bragging -- and where would that be, if not on my own blog? -- Aisling did a wonderful job. There is a LOT of music at the Easter Vigil Mass and some of it is pretty difficult, but she went to rehearsals and she practiced like mad at home and she succumbed to the vapors a few times, but when all was said and done, she carried it off like a pro. It was beautiful and we are so very, very proud of our girl.

Tisket a tasket

For the first time, here's a picture of our very own Easter basket, sitting in the church on the sanctuary steps in front of the altar -- that's a very attractive yet serviceable carpeting, isn't it? -- at the Easter Basket Blessing on Saturday afternoon.

This is our fourth year of doing this traditional blessing at our parish, but only the first year I've known how to work a digital camera. Duh.
Anyway, our basket held the following items: the ham, pictured in its inelegant plastic wrapping at the far left, our painted Easter eggs, the Honey/Oatmeal bread I baked, a blue container of salt, a candle and a bottle of chardonnay from Cupcake Vineyards, all because I couldn't resist the simple yet luscious elegance of their label. I hope the wine is as delectable as their packaging. I'll keep you posted. And don't forget to take note of my lovely embroidered Easter basket cover, which I bought on e-Bay for eight dollars. You don't often get a family heirloom for such a low price.

The blessing of the baskets was a great success this year, with about twenty families taking part -- last year, I think it was maybe about six. One fellow I'd never seen before came puffing in with an Easter basket the size of a baby dolphin just as Father was getting ready to do the blessing; the man paused in embarrassment as Father, who had just raised his arm with that holy-water-sprinkler-thingy, lowered it down again and said, "C'mon, bring it up. I was just getting started."

The man, chagrined, came forward and plunked his basket down on the floor as the rest of us looked interestedly on, wondering what on earth he had in the thing. It was heeeyooooge. Maybe an entire roasted hog? A fifty pound bag of salt? Whatever it was, it nearly had him knackered, and he stood up, back creaking a little, and wiped a sheen of sweat off his brow and apologetically scuttled into a pew.

The whole blessing takes about fifteen minutes, which is kind of a short time for the half-hour-there-half-hour-back we have in travel time, especially since I was in the throes of misery and had to sit in a seat that allowed me a direct line to the bathroom. Sorry to keep mentioning that in all these posts, but it's important to remember just how lousy I felt or the fact that I had an honest-to-goodness healing about five hours later won't be the momentous occurrence it truly is. Just tell yourself that I was in the bathroom all day powdering my nose. Maybe that will help.

(Small but significant) Easter miracle

I logged on here yesterday evening before we left the house to take Aisling to music rehearsal before the Easter Vigil, and I was in a bit of a pickle.

I had woken up yesterday morning feeling sick. Just, you know, nauseous and intestiney and with that feeling that it would be a really good idea not to stray too far from the bathroom. It totally felt like a twenty-four hour stomach bug, but the problem was, I wanted to be at the Easter Vigil in, like, ONE hour.

So I logged on here and asked for prayers, and I thank you, those who e-mailed me to say that you did. And I sent up a few of my own, along the lines of "Jeeeesus, please make me feel better because I....I....oh, wait a minute until I get back from the bathroom because it just seems WRONG ON MANY LEVELS to pray while leaning over the toilet, Lord..."

'Cause you know what? I stopped feeling sick right before we got to the church. I mean, I STOPPED FEELING SICK. The nausea and....other stuff? (*ahem*) It stopped. Dead halt. On a dime. Complete arrestment of forward motion. Over. Arrivederci, adios and au revoir. I'd been feeling like crap on a cracker ALL DAY LONG and as soon as we pulled into a parking space, it ended and has not come back.

Healed! I was healed of a stomach virus! Seriously. Make fun of me if you want to, but let me just say that I took NO Immodium-AD, NO Pepto, no medicine of any kind. And I got better and it was lovely.

What a very nice and extremely practical Easter gift that was, huh?

Ooooohhhhhh nooooooooo.....

We have to leave for Easter Vigil in half an hour -- Aisling has to be there for music rehearsal, so we'll be getting there early -- and ALL DAY LONG I have been slightly sick to my stomach, a symptom which has been steadily increasing all afternoon. And....there are other unpleasantries: I'll spare you the details.

But if you happen to check in here? And you're of a mind to send up a prayer for me between the hours of well, NOW and about 11:00 p.m. EST with the daylight-savings-dealio that I really don't understand? PLEASE SAY A PRAYER FOR ME.

I really want to be at this Mass. It's my favorite one of the whole year. And Aisling is playing. My husband is reading the eighth reading. And my mom and dad are going to be there. *sob!*

The painting of the eggs

Up until this year, the girls and I have dyed hard-cooked Easter eggs in the traditional manner, you know, with the Paas dye you buy at the grocery store that either does or does not require white vinegar: I never can remember which until we get home and discover that we've no white vinegar, necessitating a return trip to the grocery.

This year, we turned to a more traditional craft, which is that of blowing all the eggy stuff out of the shell (and if you feel about eggs the way I do, you'll understand what a HERO I am for doing this craft with my children) and then painting the shell. The girls were all gung-ho for the painting, but no so much on the egg-blowing. They insisted that I should be the lucky one who should have the treat of emptying all those shells, but I flat-out refused, tartly saying a few words about the many hours of labor I went through and the possibility of an untimely aneurysm and they eventually gave in, but not without a lot of eeeeeewww-ing and eeeyuuuuuuck-ing.

I chose simple pastel craft paints with a nice metallic gold for the painting of religious symbols and we had a lot of fun sitting at the dining room table yesterday afternoon and crafting away. Now that the eggs are completely dry, they need to be treated this afternoon with the glossy fixative spray I bought so that they can be carefully placed in our Easter basket and taken to the church tomorrow.

If you want to see some really nice painted eggs, check out these pretties, done in the fine old Polish tradition, and these cuties, done in a more American primitive style. Both are just lovely and, er....better than ours.

At the ready

What you're seeing there, high atop my kitchen cabinets, up near the TOTALLY COBWEB FREE ceiling, is our family Easter basket, patiently awaiting Holy Saturday and our parish's Easter Basket Blessing, when Aisling, as the tallest of our group of McKinney females, will climb on a chair and lift it down with a carefully wielded broom handle. Last year, the broom handle wasn't weilded carefully enough by Meelyn, and the basket plunged straight down and whacked her right in the head, which did not make her feel very blessed.

Here's a link to the instructions for assembling a traditional Easter basket that I posted a couple of years back. This is actually a custom of the Catholic and Orthodox Christians in eastern Europe, but it is such a lovely and meaningful practice -- or maybe I should say devotion? -- that we were more than pleased to adopt it for use in this American home.

This year, I have something new for our Easter basket, and that is a hand-embroidered cover for it -- also part of the traditional basket assembly -- and you cannot believe how beautiful and inexpensive it was. When it comes in the mail, I'll be sure to take a picture of it.

Also this year, we'll probably go in the same direction we've gone in other years, stuffing a small ham, a bottle of wine, some salt, a loaf of bread, some decorated eggs and a holy candle inside; you can click on that link above to read about the significance of those things. That all makes for a heavy Easter basket, burgeoning with Easter joy. And this year, I'll actually be able to take a picture at the church of everyone's Easter basket - in the past few years, there have been about six or seven families who have participated, and I hope even more will be there this year.

Anyway, with the weather so soft and spring-like these past few days, I can't help but keep glancing up there at that basket in anticipation of the happiness to come, which is part of what Lent is all about.

When heaven is wedded to earth

Easter Vigil Mass last night was one of the most beautiful I have ever been to. As I sat listening to the readings that tell the history of salvation from the fall of mankind to the coming of the Savior, I marveled again how I came to be sitting in a Catholic Church, ready to melt into a puddle with love for Him.

We were received into the Church six years ago last night, so it was an anniversary celebration as well. I keep wondering why He chose me when there are so many people I know who are smarter and wiser and better.

The road to the Catholic Church was not without its rocky places, though. Strangely enough, even though we became Catholic during the worst scandal of the modern era -- it seemed like every day brought a different account of some priest diddling a teenage boy in the sacristy -- that didn't deter either me or my husband. We'd both been in church practically all our lives and we knew about the swept-under-the-rug problems involving church leaders, so I suppose it wasn't much of a shock to either of us: We both had parents who were fans of Jim and Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart back in the day.

No, it was the smaller things that made us wary, like the whole bonfire thing before Easter Vigil starts. When this was first explained to me -- "We meet outside the church? And there's, like, one of those brazier things? Like you might have on your patio? And someone has started a fire in it? Well, anyway, Father lights the Paschal candle from that fire and...Oh, wait, I forgot! First he blesses the fire. THEN he lights the big candle and sings 'Chri-ist be our li-ight' and it's great if the priest can sing, but maybe not so much if he doesn't have a good voice. And then everyone else lights their candles from the Paschal candle and then we go back into the church. And there you go!" -- I thought it sounded like a funny kind of thing to do, out there next to the road and all, but I was already firmly committed to belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist (still am), so I figured I could deal with the fire thing.

It was a step, though. I was a member, from the year I was fourteen, of an evangelical charismatic Protestant church where the people thought nothing of waving their arms in the air in praising the Lord, and singing in loud voices or yelling out 'Hallelujah!' or even being slain in the Spirit, but if you'd ever have asked any of us to traipse out to the parking lot and light a fire in someone's Weber grill hauled out from home in the back of the truck and then stand around out there, singing and lighting candles and talking about Christ being our light and all, well. Well. I just don't think that would have gone over all that well, in spite of the fact that our church parking lot was back off the main drag in New Castle, and not right there on Broad Street where all the teenagers used to cruise in their cars and play loud music.

Once I was able to experience this whole bonfire-with-singing-and-candles thing, though, I got it. The fire is like the Holy Trinity, God in the world before time began. The big Paschal candle is Jesus, who came to the world as light in the darkness. And all of us standing around with our little candles - our candles are lit from the big candle -- Jesus within us -- or lit from someone else's candle -- the Word being spread through people and throughout nations. And then we all go into the dark church, which you would never think could be illuminated just from the light of all those little candles, but somehow it is, glowing and cozy and warm with love.

It is the night that heaven is wedded to earth, and beautiful exceeding is the marriage thereof.

Every year, I wait, trembling slightly, for that one specific line of the Exsultet, the Easter Proclamation, sung a capella: "Father, to ransom a slave, you gave away your Son."

It is the most moving, most shiveringly, hauntingly beautiful hymn of all. To hear it sung, one voice rising in the darkened church lit only by the glow of the candles, is a moment almost undefinable, it is so full, so rich, so full of God's great love and compassion for us. The Exsultet has been sung at the Easter Vigil for about 1,500 years now, first in Latin, of course. Here it is in English, no less beautiful.

The Exsultet

It is truly right that with full hearts and minds and voices
we should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father,
and his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ has ransomed us with his blood,
and paid for us the price of Adam's sin to our eternal Father!

This is our passover feast,
When Christ, the true Lamb, was slain,
whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.

This is the night,when first you saved our fathers:
you freed the people of Israel from their slav'ry,
and led them dry-shod through the sea.
This is the night,when the pillar of fire
destroyed the darkness of sin.

This is night when Christians ev'rywhere,
washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night,when Jesus broke the chains
of death and rose triumphant from the grave.

What good would life have been to us,
had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

Father, how wonderful your care for us!
How boundless your merciful love!
To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!
Most blessed of all nights,
chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!

Of this night scripture says:
"The night will be as clear as day:
it will become my light, my joy."

The power of this holy night dispels all evil,
washes guilt away, restores lost innocence,
brings mourners joy;it casts out hatred,
brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride.

Night truly blessed,when heaven is wedded to earth
and we are reconciled to God!

Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night,
receive our evening sacrifice of praise,
your Church's solemn offering.

Accept this Easter candle,
a flame divided but undimmed,
a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.

Let it mingle with the lights of heaven
and continue bravely burning
to dispel the darkness of this night!

May the Morning Star which never sets
find this flame still burning:
Christ, that Morning Star,
who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,
your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Amen.


Happy Easter to you, and God bless you.

Easter Basket blessings!

Today was the Blessing of the Easter Baskets at church, the third year in a row we've had this really lovely tradition. It is Slavic in origin, and since Father is of Polish descent, he brought this tradition to the congregation, which is largely composed of Catholics of Irish, German and Italian descent. I wrote about it last year, too; this year, we weren't surprised to see many of the same people we saw then, lugging their heavy baskets up the long walk to the church's front door, into the narthex, into the church itself, and down the long aisle.

Being that it is Holy Saturday, the Blessed Sacrament was not present in the tabernacle. It feels very strange in there without Him. The emptiness seems immeasurable, kind of like when you move from one house to another: The old house still has some of your belongings in it -- a couch, some chairs, the refrigerator and stove -- but it still seems as if the heart of the home has moved on somewhere else.

Considering how strange it feels to be without the Presence of Jesus in the church, imagine how it must have felt to the disciples all those many years ago as they were hiding, their faith at its lowest ebb, wondering if any minute they were going to be arrested.

Anyway, here's what our Easter basket contained this year:

Wine -- Red wine symbolizes the blood of Christ, spilled to cover our sins

Bread -- Last year we bought hot cross buns from Panera for our basket which were delicious but expensive, and the year before that, I made a traditional egg-and-dried fruit bread that no one would eat. So this year, I employed the trusty bread machine (on the dough setting) to make a nice, rich bread put together with eggs and milk to make it richer. I didn't braid it or shape it like a cross or anything; my talents don't go in that direction. I just put it in a regular bread pan and baked it that way. The bread reminds us that Christ is our True Bread.

Salt -- Salt is a condiment, much prized throughout the world when Christians first started assembling Easter baskets, and it reminds us of our duty to flavor the world and make it better by our presence.

Eggs -- The Eastern Europeans traditionally gave up dairy products and meat for the duration of Lent, so eggs were abundant at Easter when the long fast was over. The girls colored a dozen eggs this morning, and it was the first time that they sat swirling the eggs around in the Pass dyes while listening to rock music -- what a juxtaposition! The rocker was David Cook, that handsome sweetheart from American Idol last year, and I kind of secretly like him, too, so it was all good. Eggs have been used for centuries to help people understand the concept of the Holy Trinity because they are three -- shell, white, yolk -- contained in one.

Cheese -- We bought some cream cheese which I unmolded from the container and then pressed dried cranberries into in the shape of a cross. It looked very nice. The purpose of the cheese is to provide a food that is bland yet sweet, and is intended to remind Christians that we are to be moderate in all things, but that is hard when you haven't eaten candy for soooo looooong. We will be moderate on Monday, perhaps.

Butter -- Since the Slavic people gave up all dairy products for Lent, butter also figured largely in their Easter celebrations. It was included because of its richness, which makes sense. Why do you think those vendors at the Indiana State Fair dip their roasted ears of corn in to melted butter before they hand them over to you? Butter makes everything better, and I didn't need the Indiana Dairy Council or even the Roman Catholic Church to tell me that.

Candle - The candle symbolizes Jesus as the Light of the world. This year, we bought a short, white pillar candle and placed it on my pretty pressed glass candle plate beside the basket.

Bacon -- Traditionally, of course, the meat in an Easter basket is ham, but kielbasa and bacon can also be used. Frankly, we couldn't afford a ham this year. The pork symbolizes our freedom from the Law of Moses, which forbids the eating of pork. Jesus didn't come to abolish the Law; He came to fulfill it, and it that fulfillment, as St. Peter's dream teaches us in Acts 10:11-17, we are no longer bound by those strictures. We are free to eat. And since we are free, we are going to come home from the Easter Vigil Mass this year and have bacon sandwiches on that good bread!

We really love this tradition and look forward to it every year as one of the highlights of Lent. It might just seem like a lot of trouble, putting all these things in a basket and lugging them to the church, but when you're sitting there looking at your pretty basket while Father says a series of really beautiful prayers over it, you truly realize how meaningful it is. It's also fun afterwards seeing what everyone else brought in their baskets.

A little thought at Easter time

Today is the first Friday we've been able to eat meat since early Febrary.

So what did we have for lunch today?

Bean burritos. Go figure.

Holy Saturday - "The power of this holy night..."

Tonight is the great Easter Vigil, where we will enter into a dark church with an empty tabernacle, the sanctuary lamp snuffed out; where a new fire will be lit, both without and within. Where the beautiful Paschal candle, recalling the wounds of Christ will be lit from the fire; where that Paschal candle will light the candles of every person there. Christ is the light in the darkness and His light has spread throughout the earth.

Tonight is the night of the Church's highest hymn, the Exsultet, the Easter Proclamation. This hymn is traditionally sung by just one voice, no instruments. Just one pure, clear voice in the church, telling in these ancient words the story of mankind's downfall, God's plan for salvation, His showing of the way through the law and the prophets, and finally through the coming of His Son, Jesus.

My favorite line: "To ransom a slave, you gave away your Son." I always bring tissues. It's impossible to sit through this Mass and be untouched by Him.

Here's the Exsultet, the powerful hymn of praise and thanksgiving for the unearnable gift of our salvation through Christ Jesus.

Rejoice, heavenly powers!

Sing choirs of angels!

Exult, all creation around God's throne!

Jesus Christ, our King is risen!

Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,

radiant in the brightness of your King!

Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!

Darkness vanishes for ever!

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!

The risen Savior shines upon you!

Let this place resound with joy,

echoing the mighty song of all God's people!

For Christ has ransomed us with his blood,

and paid for us the price of Adam's sin to our eternal Father!

This is night, when Christians everywhere,

washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,

are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night, when Jesus broke the chains of death

and rose triumphant from the grave.
What good would life have been to us,

had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

Father, how wonderful your care for us!

How boundless your merciful love!

To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,

which gained for us so great a Redeemer!
Most blessed of all nights,

chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!

The power of this holy night dispels all evil,

washes guilt away, restores lost innocence,

brings mourners joy;

it casts out hatred, brings us peace,

and humbles earthly pride.

Accept this Easter candle, a flame divided but undimmed,

a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.

Let it mingle with the lights of heaven

and continue bravely burning to dispel the darkness of this night!

May the Morning Star which never sets find this flame still burning:

Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead,

and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, your Son,

who lives and reigns for ever and ever. +Amen+