Christ is Truly Risen! Alleluia!

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen."

Another Easter Vigil has passed... Lent is over, Christ is truly risen!

The liturgy that started on Thursday evening escalated to a beautiful crescendo ending in the Liturgy of the Paschal Vigil. The feast has started and will last for 50 days!

The Vigil went well, the weather was so bad we couldn't really have a proper procession. The New Fire was lit and the Paschal candle brought The Light of Christ into the Church, the Exsultet was sung and so was the Gloria, finally the Gospel was proclaimed and His Resurrection announced...the 'Alleluia' once again on our lips and the Easter Garden before us with the stone rolled away reminding us of the empty tomb, that death has no power over us and His victory over it was once and for all.   

After the fasting since Good Friday, the Easter celebration began. The table was carefully laid with the best tablecloth, our special china and silver cutlery. Last year's Paschal Candle was placed in the middle of the table and so was the almond paste lamb. Decorated wooden eggs and chocolate bunnies and mini eggs too, signs of the 'New Life' were placed all around the dinner table, side boards and sitting room.

                           

After the Vigil we had a lovely meal together with my sister and her family... and as you can imagine we all had too much chocolate!

Our youngest was incredibly happy and kept on going around the house shouting "Lent is finished, Lent is finished... we can now have sweeties and chocolate"... I tried to correct her, saying that Lent was over because Christ was risen... but hey! I am sure it will become clearer for her as the years go by... the long fast before the biggest Feast was certainly clear and that feeling of waiting for something was real for her too.. this year maybe just to be able to eat chocolate again, but with time as I have seen with the older children this waiting for the risen Christ becomes more and more vivid in their lives too.

We are still in Octave of Easter, which means that these eight days, starting from Easter Sunday till the following one are considered one long day of celebration. For this reason, every day the table, whether for breakfast, lunch or dinner will be beautifully decorated and laid with all the Easter symbols.

After a busy Holy Week, we are now enjoying the fruits of the Resurrection and our human effort to make the Feast of all feast very special.

Here some pictures of our labour.

Preparing the marzipan Lambs with the girls

Egg decorating... this year we used wooden eggs instead of
real eggs and it worked much better!

Preparing the 'Easter Garden' for the Parish.
Polystyrene works very well if you want to
reproduce stone or bricks!

                                         

"We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.” JPII