What I have been waiting for…

As I described in my earlier blog, Holy Week down here is a big thing. It seems as though, at least for part of the week, the entire town shut down. Here are a few more pictures that show a few of the events like “The Way of the Cross” on Friday, and then Sunday evening Easter Mass that I went to because I was on a field trip both Saturday and Sunday, thus missing the Easter Vigil. I did not mind this though as you will find out in my following blog about the field trip.

Palm Sunday procession, (I think I showed this picture before)

The Via Cruz (Way of the Cross)

This is from the Easter Sunday evening Mass...

One activity that I do want to highlight on though, wasn’t even a part of the church-wide celebration. On Holy Thursday night (after my big bike ride), a few of the students here had planned a Jewish Seder or Passover meal to celebrate their Jewish heritage. They did a wonderful job of preparing quite a few of the traditional foods, and it was very filling. There was also an explanation, in Hebrew, English and then Spanish, of the Jewish feast along with traditional prayers recited by the students.

This dinner worked out wonderfully because Holy Thursday evening Mass uses the Gospel reading from John 13, 1-15 that depicts Jesus celebrating the Passover Meal with his disciples. Then at the end of the meal Jesus washes each of his disciples feet, as a servant would, thus expressing to them that everyone must be a servant to be the master. Even God himself humbly serves us and went through the ultimate sacrifice in order save us from our sins. I was invited to share a part of the Catholic/Christian tradition of Holy Thursday, and so I choose to have those who wanted to participate wash one another’s feet. Truthfully, I was ready to get shot down for this, thinking that I might be going a bit far, but surprisingly everyone participated and many were very excited about it.

So that was probably my favorite part of Holy Week… but it didn’t even compare to the glorious blessing of Easter.