Holy Friday
On our way to church on Friday the kids regaled each other with stories of candle mishaps in the past, most of them about Mom who had a knack for dropping her candle or falling asleep with a lit candle in her hand leaning at the right angle to set the person in front of her on fire. Some dramatic story comes out of ever Holy Week, but they all blur together in my memory. The stink of burn hair. Toddlers running in circles. Babies crying. Teens lurking in the corners of the church. This year the kids participated in a lot of the services. They didn’t come to all of them, but I was able to attend every day except the Palm Sunday and Pascha services which we did at home. We are still operating with limited seating and masks at church. So much better than the tight quarantine we were in last year with no services.
We didn’t make it through the week drama free. Basil stuck his finger in the flame of his candle and burned his hand Thursday night, and Sophia spent Holy Week with a burn on the top of her right ear. Her prom was on the night of Lazarus Saturday. I fell to talking when curling her hair and lost my concentration. At least she looked beautiful. Under pandemic restrictions, each family is supposed to stand close together. We used to spread out to different parts of the church as if we would spontaneously combust if brought too close. That hasn’t happened. On the contrary, being surrounded by my family warms my heart. Once service Justin asked to stand next to another parishioner. Since there weren’t many people attending, he was allowed. He was happy to have some variety but had to come back after he slipped behind the wall separating the sanctuary from the fellowship hall and was caught by Basil “breakdancing.” Justin says it was just exercise. Oh and the bathroom breaks. The kids seemed to take extraordinarily long bathroom breaks. These distractions are so different from the child management challenges of yesteryear. It was worth all that effort though. The kids have years upon years of memories of Holy Week that helped them navigate this year’s services and give them a sense of identity. They know that they are Orthodox Christians.
Pascha
We had communion and family pictures at the Holy Saturday service. That’s the service when they change the church from purple to gold in preparation for the Feast of Feasts. Since we had taken communion and had gone to so many other services and knew that more people wanted to attend the Pascal service than there was room for, we stayed home for Pascha. We started our Pascal Vigil at 11:30 Saturday night, singing for half an hour in darkness. The we lit candles and walked around the house three times through a light drizzle with flickering flames. When we returned the kids turned on all the lights in the front rooms and we sang the Pascal Cannon with joy. Sophia’s boyfriend Anthony enjoyed the singing. He joined in the Resurrection Troparion and hummed along with the rest of it. He did a lot of the reader’s part in the typica that followed. Mike read the epistle and the gospel and the sermon from John Chrysostom. It was much like the service we put together last year but while that service felt like a tragedy, we knew that this was our choice this year and embraced it. Justin fell asleep on the sofa half-way through which was much more comfortable than the church floor which has held his sleeping form on many other Paschas.
We shouted, “Christ is Risen!”
“Indeed, He is Risen!”
The party started around 1:00 a.m. We had sparking cider, summer sausage and cheese, croissants with clotted cream and cherry preserves. That summer sausage was amazing. I’m a meat lover. I went to bed around 1:30 but everyone else stayed up longer. Basil baked himself a batch of orange chicken. All the melancholy that had been in my heart during Holy Week was chased away with joy and feasting. It is well with my soul, and I am so happy.
We had Crepes Suzette and bacon for breakfast, and Ribeye steaks for dinner with our friends Ora and her son August and Andreas. We ate kulich and cheese Pascha for dessert along with the amazing rice crispy treats brought by Ora.
I am so thankful that the kids go to an Orthodox school which has given us Monday off. They are sleeping in and recovering from the weekend. School starts up tomorrow, but though the long weekend is ending the Pascal season is just beginning.
Christ is risen!
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