Holy Week

March 25, 2008
Bit late to be posting about Holy Week, but I'm behind as usual. I really enjoyed the Holy Week services at our new parish here in VA. In particular, I found the Good Friday service to be moving. As a convert who has spent her entire life in the Memphis area up until moving recently to VA, I have always attended one parish. It was a parish in which the priest was older and rather rotund. So this is the first Good Friday where I saw the priest and deacon walk in and prostrate themselves before the cross as the Good Friday service began. What a simple but beautiful message.
The parish itself historically served the African-American community but has expanded to offer a weekly Spanish Mass and attracts people from all walks of life. That is what I love so much about it.
During the veneration of the cross, we watched as an elderly black man rolled up in one of those scooters and - shakily supporting himself on his cane - bent to kiss the cross. I watched a round Mexican Abuela (grandmother) genuflect and struggle to stand and kiss the cross. Then there was the blond young man in the business suit genuflecting to kiss the cross.
I'm glad my family was sitting near the front of the church and that my children were able to watch the veritable parade of people kissing the cross. Joey was afraid to do it but he did anyway. "Stage fright," he said.
I'm not sure they understand everything we do. I know I am teaching them about it at homeschool and reading them The Life of Our Lord for Children. But whether they understand it or not, they are receiving a visual understanding of the love Christians are supposed to have for Christ. They are participating in honoring the Savior, and I know that will make an imprint on their lives which I hope bears fruit when they are older.
I know that even when I was an agnostic in my 20s, years of church-going as a child predisposed me to return and - in my exile - to yearn for that home to which all spirits wish to fly.