Twilight Twitches

Dear Family,
Before anything else, on behalf of Annie, Patricio, Judy, Peter and Sue, thank you once again for all your kind Easter cards and greetings.

Again, I thank Sue and Scott Martinez and Ann Murry who did a wonderful decoration job with all the flowers. After Good Friday, Judy Fisher, Maryellen Maher, and Mary Wood stayed and helped set up the sanctuary for Holy Saturday.

We’ll be able to enjoy the Easter drapes until Pentecost. Each time I look up, I’ll be grateful for the whole team who made it all work.

Dear Family,
“Jesus Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!”

That’s the joyful cry of the women and men who have made an Emmaus weekend over the years. As St. Paul tells the Corinthians (I, 15:17) “... and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain...”

Our celebrations of Holy Week were a blessing. So many people worked to make the days special! Everything from cleaning to decorations to hanging drapes and to clever adaptations of our customs and rites caused by COVID. If we couldn’t wash feet, we could hold a bowl and a pitcher for hands. We couldn’t kiss the Cross, so we came and bowed or genuflected. They seem like little things but when you add it all up maybe COVID did us a favor by helping us pay more attention.

Dear Family,
A Blessed and Happy Easter. Welcome to our visitors. I’m so grateful we have had the ability to outfit the parish hall with a live feed of our liturgies with the Eucharist.

The team has been wonderful; Patricio Diaz-Pizzaro with endless furniture arranging, super musician-turned-techie Peter Manfredi with his tireless creativity and work in making the new slides for the readings and hymns we use during the liturgies, and Annie Gardner who coordinated the volunteers who “sanitize” the pews each weekend. You’ll find them named across the page in a special corner of thanks. (I was going to make some reference to Annie as the parish’s special Easter Bunny, but after due consideration thought better of the idea. We simply say, “Thanks Annie, for everything.”)

Dear Family,
Once again, we begin the Holiest of Weeks. We sing, “We remember, we celebrate, we believe.”

Personally, I remember glimpses of the 53 Holy Weeks I have celebrated as a priest.

Often, I’d be so concerned about remembering all the details a ceremony required, that it was a little difficult to really - “get happy” – until it was all over. Then I’d breathe a sigh of relief and the celebration would begin for me.