As I was tidying the house a few days ago:
“Mommy, April na!” (Mommy, it’s April already!)
“Yes, it’s April 1 today.”
“Change na natin calendar.” (Let’s change the calendar.)
“Okay.”
So there goes my conversation with my little girl who turned four years and seven months on the last day of March. Oh, how excited was she to turn the page of the calendar to signal the start of another month. And another quarter of the new year. And that first week of the month is
How time flew. The past three months were a mixture of good and bad things. But as a dear friend told me, always let the positive things outshine the negative ones.
Holy Week always gives me a special blessing. This year, it’s the blessing of strengthening our role as church volunteers. This is made special because our little girl is already part of the church activities, and getting more active as days pass.
On Palm Sunday, she was the littlest angel among the youth volunteers, while I sang for the choir and my husband played guitar during the procession.
On Good Friday, we brought her with us to attend the Veneration of the Cross and the Way of the Cross outside the Shrine. It was a first for her, witnessing our Shrine priests and apostle actors carrying the cross like Jesus did. I was carrying our little girl using a ringsling, and she was singing along the choir then eventually took a nap even it was a little warm that day.
We culminated Holy Week with the Easter Sunday Mass at church. We served for two masses this morning. The kids had a simple Easter egg hunt after the children’s mass. Aria and the other volunteers were given a special role to give a gift to our Bishop-celebrant as the second Mass is about to end.
During the week, we interspersed reading and watching videos about the Passion of Christ and why we celebrate Holy Week. The prayer that she formulated out of all this: Thank You, Jesus, for dying for us.
Every Holy Week is a blessing, renewal of faith, strengthening of the ministry of church service, and a much needed pause for reflection. Above it all, it is a great blessing for all of us who lived another year to commemorate Holy Week and be with Jesus as we trace His earthly journey to die for us. Even if it’s tiring, seemingly repetitive, and for some, boring perhaps. But we still move on and look forward to the next, every year that we are here on earth.
I wish your families the best this Eastertide.
~ Touringkitty