Triduum

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Easter Triduum

What a busy time! On Holy Thursday King B sang at the Mass of the Lord's Supper at our parish. What a beautiful Mass! The music was wonderful. I think my favorite part of the entire weekend was when they processed the Blessed Sacrament to it's place of repose and turned out the lights. That moment was so very quiet and peaceful. Thankfully Busker slept through the whole Mass.

After Mass, we went to dinner (no one had eaten before hand and we were all very hungry), then headed out to LI. We spent Good Friday doing a lot of cleaning / clearing out at the house in order to get it "showing ready". My SIL had some fabric that she had bought a while back to make curtains for the family room. I was inspired by a post I'd read on another blog (and if I can remember which one it was, I'll post it), and suggested tacking up folded lengths of it as valances. It turned out well! As soon as she sends me pictures, I'll post those too.

A little before 3 we headed over to St. William's for the Communion Service. Good Friday service always gets to me, and I spend a good bit of it fighting back tears. After the final veneration of the cross, we headed over to the rectory to a) visit with Fr. F. (the priest who married us; and b) get a copy of some music King B needs for my friend's wedding next week. Fr. F seemed to really enjoy getting to hold Little Ben Busker, and we thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

We got home very late Friday night (it was actually early Saturday morning by the time we got settled), and slept in a little bit on Saturday before getting up to clean the house. Breakfast was choice of pancakes or eggs. Padawan chose eggs, the rest of us ate pancakes. King B headed out to choir rehearsal, then came home instead of teaching his guitar student. Rehearsal had gone late, so they will double up another day.

After running a couple of errands, we rested and got ready for Vigil Mass. One of the things I like best about King B being in the choir (aside from getting to hear him sing every week) is the fact that the choir needs to be at church an hour before Mass (although we rarely get there on time). This enables me to have some quiet, prayer time to prepare myself for Mass. And nurse Busker while the church is relatively empty, rather than full for Mass.

Vigil was amazing. They didn't have the full choir - instead they had a quartet consisting of the music director (alto), regular cantor (soprano), the cantor's husband ( a bass), and King B (tenor). King B sang the Exultet. He did it in the Gregorian chant style and it was beautiful. The quartet sounded so nice.

I was nervous attending the long Vigil with the kids, but they did well - even Buddy. I think having the candles in the very beginning was a huge help with Buddy - it gave him something to focus on and fiddle with. Busker actually slept the entire time! After Vigil, King B had to bring Padawan back to LI. He didn't get home until close to 2 am! And yes, I stayed up waiting for him. I can rarely fall soundly asleep until he gets home.

Easter Sunday, King B again sang at Mass at our parish, while the children and I stayed home and made a yummy brunch. We had "scramblies" (KTbug named them that years ago - basically it is just seasoned scrambled eggs with ham), English Muffin bread (new recipe since I lost the old one.... need to find the old one as this one was not quite as "Nook and Cranny" filled) and juice. We then finished doing the cleaning up chores and got ready for my BIL and SIL to come for dinner.

We had a lovely visit with BIL and SIL, and SIL filled the manicotti as I made them. We had manicotti, pork loin roast, cranberry and green bean casserole. It was yummy! Pigeon made brownies for dessert. OH! I just realized we never sang Happy Birthday to BIL! His birthday was actually on Good Friday, so we were going to celebrate it on Sunday since Good Friday is a day of fasting. I'm sorry BIL!!

After dinner, we watched a video of a play that King B was in, that BIL directed. I'd never gotten to see King B in any kind of a play production - only singing. He's a good actor as well as a phenomenal singer. I enjoyed it very much!

While we were watching, I was working on crocheting a new diaper cover for Busker. I was going to make the entire cover using the Thistle Stich pattern, but decided it would end up being too bulky, so left it as just having two pattern repeats at the waist. SIL really liked the stitch pattern, and felt it would make a nice cardigan. I'm going to try my hand at designing a cardigan pattern utilizing this stitch. Here is a picture of the back waist of the cover to give you an idea.

Yesterday was a day of recuperating from all the busy-ness from the weekend. Going to try to get back on track with household stuff today. Mostly today I am planning on the planning of things. With going back to work in a few weeks, I need to have a mental map of how that will work. Off to visit with FLYlady, to get some inspiration!



Blessings to you,