So that brings us to Sunday. Tom and I got about 4-5 good hours of sleep before we were dressed and waiting at the Parish Center at 5am to proclaim that Jesus is Risen. It was a blustery 65F so everyone was bundled up in hats, scarves, ear warmers!, coats, pants, etc. against the arctic chill. Tom had a short-sleeved shirt and shorts on and wasn’t cold. At 5ish we, the Risen Lord carried by four youth, and our truck with a loud speaker on it started processing through the streets singing loudly and cheering Cristo Vive! Cristo Reina! Cristo Salva!
Every block the Sisters would announce, we are marching to the church with the Risen Lord come out of your homes and join us. Christ in Risen, no one should be sleeping! Some people came out and joined us, others just peeped out their windows at the noise. I think we did a reasonably good job waking everyone up at least. When we got to the Plaza in front of the church at 5:50am we met up with the three other groups that came from the three other corners of the neighborhood each with their own car with a loud speaker and statue: Mary, Angel Gabriel, John. So we all file into the Church with some others who had been woken up by the procession joining us also and it was FULL. Easter being an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation we had no less than 18 altar servers, possibly more than the Pope himself. The mass was pretty standard but lasted until 7:15 and I think during the Homily we were all really starting to drag a bit. No one had eaten yet that morning and the sound was bad, the priest was kind of mumbling, we got through it though. At the end of mass the priest proffered up possibly the most apathetic “Alleluia, Alleluia” I’d ever heard, we sang a song about Mary (?) and then we were out of there.
When we got back Tom and I made some pancakes for breakfast and the Sisters brought us over a plate of their Easter breakfast to share also.
It contained fruit cakes, cheesy cakes, smoked bacon, salami, chocolates and some raw painted eggs. (mmm…eggs aren’t refrigerated here) Now we’re resting and we’ll be heading over to the Hogar to have Easter lunch with the girls and watch them do their egg hunt. Happy Easter to everyone! Jesus Christ in Risen, Hallelujah!
