Well, that was weird.
Easter, the pinnacle of our liturgical year, is usually one of the busiest seasons for me. This year… not so much.
Normally, we’re preparing to baptize several youth and adults at the Easter Vigil Mass. It’s super exciting. A couple years ago we had 26 baptisms! It was crazy. Shortly after Easter we’re then preparing to celebrate the Confirmation and First Communion of 150-180 youth. Today (Thursday) was supposed to be the second of our three Confirmation celebrations. The weeks around Easter are always exhausting, and there’s so much to do, and so much excitement. A significant part of my work for the entire year reaches its culmination in these few days.
This year, all of that is unfortunately on hold. And it’s weird.
We still have 8 youth ready to be baptized, but we need to wait. We still have 150 youth ready to receive Confirmation & First Communion, but we need to wait. We have a few adults ready to be Confirmed, including one becoming Catholic, but we need to wait.
Everything has been so different this year. Instead of hours of meetings, rehearsals, retreats, and preparation, I was almost exclusively sitting in front of my computer at home. My focus became online updates on the website, Facebook, & Twitter. Instead of being surrounded by hundreds of people for each liturgy, I was surrounded by 4 people and a cat, watching a few other people on our tv. Instead of my daughter lighting her hair on fire at the Easter Vigil by bouncing into Gil Wist’s candle, well, she still nearly managed to set herself on fire. (Sigh.) And this is probably the only Easter ever where I’ll get to sit back with a glass of wine while listening to the amazing readings during the Vigil.
We’ve tried our best to maintain a bit of “normal” in these times. We try to join Mass online around the same time as we usually would go. We tried to join in the celebrations of Holy Week, the Triduum, and Easter like we normally would (apart from the glass of wine). We are keeping our family tradition of feasting throughout this entire Easter week. Still, despite our best efforts, it couldn’t be anything other than very different.
It’s just a very weird year. But it is what it is.
I mentioned before a quote I love from Julian of Norwich. Her words continue to inspire me with hope:
All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well.
God is good, and he is good to me, and he is good to you. In spite of our trials and struggles, pains and fears, we can choose to trust in him. He is trustworthy.
By the way, check out Worship@Home. They’re producing some great stuff to help us all continue to celebrate and grow in our faith while we can't be together.