Happy Easter

I never attended the Easter Vigil Mass while I was growing up, mostly due to the fact that I had siblings who were too young to attend. We always went to Mass on Easter Sunday, after a few dozen chocolate eggs and before a few hundred jelly beans. (All I'm saying is that I put a big hurt on the old pancreas. Big.)

I knew that the Vigil was when people who were seeking full communion with the Catholic Church were accepted into our faith family, and I knew about all the cool parts (the darkness, the big fire) from reading about them. After I attended my first Vigil, as a senior in high school, I came away thinking it was long. And, I am sad to say, that was about the extent of my impression.

After we married, Rob and I followed my childhood tradition of attending Mass on Easter Sunday. When the children came, we clung even tighter to that tradition since our gang seems to implode when they are kept up late. If you keep them up for hours past their bedtimes they revert into little snarling, crying masses of hair and teeth and nails. It's not pretty, and it's better for us to go in the morning, at least in this season of life with small children.

But now I always go to Sunday morning mass and the Vigil, since I am in the choir and almost everything in the Vigil is sung. Last night was my third Vigil in this parish, and it was beautiful. I mean bring-a-tear-to-my-eye beautiful.

During the Vigil, the church remains in darkness while we listen to readings, prayers, and psalms. Then the lights come blazing back during the Gloria, revealing the splendor of the church now that Christ is risen. This is a pretty big moment, since the church has been barren for forty days: no holy water, all of the statues covered in heavy purple cloth, no adornment of any kind, as a fast for the senses. Because the choir members need to see their music in the dark, we get to bring little flashlights with us. That "let there be light" moment sometimes passes by me too quickly.

There was no way it could have passed without notice last night. When the lights filled the church, as the organ started the Gloria, Monsignor nodded to the altar server. She picked up her bells and began to shake them, a little timidly. As soon as her bells sounded, every member of my parish family pulled out a bell and started ringing it wildly. Children stood on the kneelers with their bells, little old ladies pulled huge school bells out of their purses, and our bells in the steeple were ringing out into the night. While the church resounded with "Glory to God in the highest," hundreds of bells were echoing in my chest. I was so moved that I had to stop singing because I was smiling so hard. I could only smile and breathe a prayer in and out.

I'm still smiling today. That's the joy of Easter, my friends, and I wish it for all of you.

The HomeFront Gang in all their Easter finery. (And that is a wad of Tootsie Rolls in Francie's cheek, not chewing tobacco. She knows she can't start dip until she's at least ten. Even if she is a widow)

A little sign of Spring on our dinner table, since the kids did their Easter egg hunt in their
Tundra gear

"Here GeeGee ('Grandmom'), I think these potatoes might need a little
something extra."

Three guesses as to who wrote "HORSE" on their egg before dyeing it, and the first two don't count.

Gangster or hardscrabble newsie with a heart of gold?
You make the call.