Current mood:

excited

Like coming home
Since the boys were very small (so, probably 15 years), Glenn and I have been hard-pressed to involve ourselves fully with Holy Week.  With services three nights running, it was difficult to get sitters.  We would take turns, but that was like missing half the acts of a play.  Eventually I chose not to go at all.

This year Tom is in a group home.  Last night we went to a Maundy Thursday service--Maundy is a corruption of the same word that gave us mandate--it is a night of new commandments.  "Do this in remembrance of me."  "Love one another as I have loved you."  We remember that He washed the feet of his disciples, and we mark more particularly the liturgy we celebrate every week, the bread and wine that are his body and blood.  Afterwards, in silence, the altar and sanctuary are stripped of clothing, candlesticks, crosses.  The tabernacle is left empty and open, for He has departed to meet his fate.

Friday, Good Friday, is the solemn remembrance of his betrayal, torture, and death; remembering always that it is because we are sinners that He must die.  We each of us, in our hearts, spend a private moment with our Saviour.  I heard again the words that I have not heard in years; ancient words praying in all solemnity that God will look upon us, the family for which Christ was willing to die.  Words that go back to the third century; prayed in a hundred languages by millions of hearts.

Tomorrow is the Great Vigil.  We will watch through the night (well, OK, through the evening) as Christ passes over from death into life.  We will light the New Fire, symbolizing Christ's new life and our new life in him, and we will pass that flame from one to the next till the entire church is lit.  We will remember God's creation of the world; humankind's fall, the birth of Israel.  With that nation we will depart from slavery in Egypt, guided by God by night and by day.  We will remember the prophecies of the Messiah. 

At last, the baptisms, and the triumphant cry, "Alleluia, Christ is risen."  After the long liturgical journey, we will truly feel reborn with him that night.

It's been a long time.  I can't wait.