I'm going to preface this posting by saying the Easter Vigil Mass was beautiful and at times, a bit surreal. I thought it captured the essence of what Easter should be all about. Now that I made nice with our pastor and church community.....we all know Easter is about chocolate and coloring eggs. Lent and Easter Mass is kind of the test we have to go through to see how much chocolate we deserve. The more difficult and longer to endure the mass is, the more we are rewarded....or at least that's how I think it should be. Why is my seat getting warm? Oh well...moving on...after this year's Easter Mass, I feel me and the girls should be rewarded for a long, long time. (Seriously, it's getting really warm all of a sudden). Normally we attend Easter morning mass with about 5 thousand other families, or at least it seems that way. This year, I opted for the Saturday night show...I mean, option...I mean mass. The only reason I did this was because Mike has been away all week due to his step-mother's unexpected passing, and his flight came in Sat night at 1150pm so I did not want to have to get up early the next morning. I know, I know, where's the sacrifice on my part. I do know that you have to get to any Easter or Christmas mass very early if you want to get a parking space close enough not to need a shuttle. This mass was at 7pm so we got there about 20min early. That could be viewed as a mistake in light of the evenings events, but I still think it's worth it not to have to walk for miles to get to your car. What I was not aware of was that the Easter Vigil mass is similar to the Christmas midnight mass in that it lasts a very long time - 2 hours, in fact. The first half of the mass is all in darkness, except for the candles everyone is holding. At the very beginning, it's almost like a concert in that there are no lights and the candles are lit, one by one from neighbor to neighbor, growing brighter and brighter as they are all lit....just as we lit our lighters at the concerts back in the day. It was pretty cool, except that we had a family with two "spirited" young boys (read young boys with parents who felt no need to discipline them in church...or gave up after speaking to them twice). One of which was right in front of Bethany. He kept jumping around and we nearly had a Michael Jackson incident with his hair. There were little plastic cups on the candles to catch the dripping wax, however I noticed a few people holding the candles at an angle and melting their plastic cups as well.
Anyone who attends Catholic mass regularly knows that every mass has 2 readings and then the Gospel reading. I knew I was in trouble when there was a 3rd, then a 4th reading and still no Gospel reading! I looked at my cell phone clock and 1 hr 15min had passed! And we still weren't at the Gospel reading! I have to say my girls were really good, they asked when it would end a few times, but they didn't get whine-y. There were 5 readings before the Gospel reading. By the time we got to the snack, I mean communion, I was sure we would be rewarded with a few, if not a handful! I really think we earned it.
Another feature of this mass was many of the parts of mass were sung by the priest and deacon...and I don't mean sung as in "The Saints Will Go Marching In"...I mean as in Gregorian chant type stuff. And sometimes we were meant to respond in chant....but no one knew how so everyone was singing it different ways...
By the time the mass was almost over, Bethany was fed up with the boys in front of her - she couldn't understand why they wouldn't just behave. I was like, "Are you kidding? You are looking in a mirror, girlfriend!" After mass was over I had to wait around for my parents, which meant I got to see a lot of people...this is when I found out I missed the best part of the mass! Apparently the Serial Breast Feeder is back and I missed it! She was there, live and in action, and I missed the whole thing!
I have let my peeps down....ok, I really think something is wrong with the heater....
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