I’m continuing my blog post from yesterday, Holy Week: Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

I woke up early on Holy Saturday with the idea of doing some more baking, but instead, I lay awake in bed and talked with God. When I say “talked with God,” what I mean is I prayed, listened, meditated, and let my mind wander.

X Marks the Spot

I told Jesus that I was so thankful for His sacrifice for me and all of us. That I was so happy that tonight was Easter Vigil. I thanked God, the Father, Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit for the last year: my first full liturgical year as a Catholic. Finally, I asked God what I could do for Him this year.

By this point, I was half asleep again, so I had a little dream. In it, I was standing in front of a very tall wooden pole. Jesus said to touch the “X” on the pole. I saw that it was only a little way up the pole, and I could easily touch it without jumping. I said, “Easily done!” and reached up to touch the X, but I couldn’t reach it. It was higher than I thought, so I tried to jump, but I still couldn’t reach it. I tried to climb, but I still couldn’t reach it. Finally, I turned to Him and asked for help. “Can You give me a boost so I can touch that spot like You asked?” I felt Him lift me up on His shoulder like a little child, and I rose so high into the air. I could then easily touch the spot He had asked me to.

After this, I thought about the dream all day and remembered Holy Thursday and how reluctant so many of us (including me) were to have our feet washed. In adoration after Holy Thursday, I spent much of the time thanking Jesus and praying for help for people I know and also for myself- to know what He would like me to be doing. Then I felt terrible because I am always asking Him for so much. I asked Him then, what can I do for You? I heard “RCIA” and I understood that I should ask if any help was needed with RCIA. But I felt like that was such a small thing when I had asked for so much, so I thought, I will ask for less in the future.

I think the morning’s dream was a continuation of this meditation in adoration. I think God wants me to ask Him for whatever help I or others need and not try to do things on my own. Also I should always understand that any task He asks me to do, I can do because He will help if I ask Him.

Priorities

Over Lent, I had intended to pray even more, but I prayed less. I got so busy and tired that prayer was the easiest thing to push aside. I was just so active: busy, doing, going, getting things done. It was like how I was before my conversion. But I understand now that the order of operations in my life should be as follows:

• Prayer and relationship with God (including the sacraments of Communion and confession)
• My vocation as wife and mother
• Writing and reading
• Everything else

I wonder if this is why priests promise to pray the liturgy of the hours each day. Is it because God knows that as life creeps in, they will get busy with 1,000,000 demands, and then their prayer life will get pushed aside?

Food Blessing

After the long prayer session in bed, I got up at about 6:30am and started getting things around for the Blessing of Easter Foods. I went to the one at St. Augusta because whenever there is anything at St. Augusta, that is where I will go, especially if it is morning or evening and the light is shining through the stained glass.

I was distracted and didn’t take a picture of my basket, but this is what I put in it:

• Cherry Moscato to share after Easter lunch
• Two blood oranges to use to make hot cross buns
• A bowl of eggs from the chickens to make hot cross buns and the lamb cake
• Horseradish I had made from roots I dug the day before
• Whole wheat bread with walnuts
• Blackberry jam Stuart made last summer
• Two white candles
• Honey cinnamon butter made with fancy Irish butter and honey Stuart got in trade for helping the Pokagon tribe of Potowotomi with bison

I did take pictures of all the baskets gathered in the church, bathed in light from the stained glass window. I also made a butter lamb, but it was too fragile to transport. As the foods were being blessed, I felt a great happiness bubbling up inside. Even though I was still sad, I knew that Easter was tomorrow. As a Christian, I am an Easter person. It isn’t in me to be sorrowful for long.

At home, I zested the blood oranges and squeezed the juice to make icing for the hot cross buns. I used turmeric to make the buns yellow/gold for Easter. The icing turned out to be a lovely purple-pink color from the blood orange juice. I didn’t even intend to use blood oranges; It was just the kind of oranges Stuart bought. I used the eggs in the buns and also in the lamb cake. This cake was kind of a last penance of Lent!

What a difficult thing it was to make! I think next year I will just buy a lamb cake.

Easter Vigil Mass

I went to the Easter Vigil Mass early because I remembered last year, even though we came 30 minutes early, there were almost no places left. But this year, there was lots of room to sit—St. Cecilia has more seating than Sorrowful Mother. I think it is also because there were no baptisms, which makes me so sad. I am praying that next year, there will be at least one.

As with last year, we went out to the Easter Vigil fire, which was already burning brightly, and the Paschal Candle for each parish was lit. When we came in, we were each handed a little candle with a paper around the bottom to catch any wax drips. A group of teenagers from Youth Ministry came forward to have their candles lit, and then they went around the church, lighting other people’s candles at the end of the pews. From there, the fire was shared down the pews as those who had their candles lit helped light the candles of those around them. I love the symbolism of this: how the light flows forth, and we share it with others. Renewing the baptismal promises from last year was also especially moving.

It is crazy how much can happen in one year! Last year, I received First Communion on Easter Vigil, and this year, I helped distribute Communion as an EMHC. What wonders God can do in our life in so short a time!

I loved all the readings and responsorial psalms for the day, but Psalm 30 was my favorite. It was one of the ones listed for Easter Vigil in the Missalette but was skipped. Both it and Psalm 32 have been on a loop in my head all week:

Psam 30: Thanksgiving for Recovery from Grave Illness

A Psalm. A Song at the dedication of the temple. Of David.
1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up,
    and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
    and you have healed me.
3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
    restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.[a]

4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,
    and give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment;
    his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
    but joy comes with the morning.

6 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
    “I shall never be moved.”
7 By your favor, O Lord,
    you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face;
    I was dismayed.

8 To you, O Lord, I cried,
    and to the Lord I made supplication:
9 “What profit is there in my death,
    if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
    Will it tell of your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!
    O Lord, be my helper!”

11 You have turned my mourning into dancing;
    you have taken off my sackcloth
    and clothed me with joy,
12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

New Revised Standard Bible Catholic Edition https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2030&version=NRSVCE

Psalm 32: The Joy of Forgiveness

Of David. A Maskil.
1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
    whose sin is covered.
2 Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,
    and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
    my strength was dried up[a] as by the heat of summer.Selah

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
    and you forgave the guilt of my sin.Selah

6 Therefore let all who are faithful
    offer prayer to you;
at a time of distress,[b] the rush of mighty waters
    shall not reach them.
7 You are a hiding place for me;
    you preserve me from trouble;
    you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;
    I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
    whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,
    else it will not stay near you.

10 Many are the torments of the wicked,
    but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,
    and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

New Revised Standard Bible Catholic Edition https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+32&version=NRSVCE

Confusion

In his homily, Father Mike said that God’s love and a relationship with God can be confusing, and I just laughed out loud. Yes. Yes, it can.

I wish I could have read something like this blog in August 2022. I wish someone had told me how much my life would change, how much I would change. I hope someday, my Reader is someone who finds this helpful. That is really the reason I’m recording all of this. It would be so much easier not to write or, if I must write, to do so in a personal journal. Then I wouldn’t have to think so much about what to include or leave out.

Easter Sunday

I woke up on Easter Morning feeling so happy and grateful. Again, I lay awake in bed talking with God. I felt like a cork that had been held deep underwater but was finally being let loose to rise up and explode out of the water.

On the drive to Mass on Easter Sunday, I was thinking about the Good Thief who died on the cross next to Jesus. He was still struggling to stay alive after Jesus had died. The soldiers broke his legs, so he couldn’t hold himself up anymore, and he had to surrender to death. I think that I was like the thief. God had to allow life to break my legs so I would surrender and ask for help. If I could have stood for myself, I never would have sought Him out. But because I had nowhere to turn, I turned to Him. And oh, Reader, for that, I am so thankful.

I think every one of us is like this. We all have drama playing out in our lives where God is working to draw us closer to Him. Sometimes, I look at people and wonder how God is working in their lives. What is their story? What is God trying to teach them today?

For my part, what I learned over Lent was to listen to and talk with God more, to ask for help, and to be humble enough to accept it.

I still need to go back and read my journal entries from this time last year. Maybe there are other lessons and new ways to see old events hiding there.