Christ our Light!


Thanks be to God!

Saturday night we celebrated my tenth birthday.  How can it be that ten years have passed since Holy Mother Church opened her arms and accepted me in?  Was the Great Jubilee really that long ago?

Max and Philip have recently become aware of the fact that I have not always been Catholic.  It tastes strange in their mouths, knowing their mom did not grow up the way they are.  It is all they know and I understand that my conversion is strange and foreign to them.  They have been full of questions as a result.

How? When? Why?

Sometimes they are hard to answer.  We strive to be honest and frank in this house and we try our best to talk to them as people, not just children.  But sometimes, sometimes, I don’t know the words to explain long winding reasons or great theological debates. These are the kinds of questions they are asking and I have answered with truth being truth.

“But how?” Max pressed.  And then I realized he wanted the gritty mechanics and processes.   Things were simpler and more convoluted all at once.

“At the Easter Vigil, Mother of All Liturgies!” I answered.  As I began to describe the wonder of the vigil, I mentioned candles and darkness and stories.  Sold!

“Do they have it every year?  At the Cathedral?  Can we go?  Please?? Can we?”

I was reluctant, not because I don’t love the Vigil, but because the last time we went, things did not go so well.  Tess was just a babe and I nearly threw Philip out the door of the church for being too 2.  I was wary.  But I could also count the number of Vigils I have celebrated since having kiddos on 1 finger. It seemed right, this being my tenth birthday, to be at the Cathedral with the Bishop to celebrate the Resurrection.

I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday.

The night was beautiful and the kids were troopers.  Philip was unenthusiastic but warmed up to being there when we started into the Gloria and he couldn’t get over the ‘big” people getting baptized.  Tess got a bloody nose, removed her shoes and her headband and visited the potty twice, but she survived.  Ellie didn’t cry for the entire 3 hours and managed to stay up until her siblings were in bed, too, at midnight.  And Max?  Max followed along with each reading, getting more and more excited.

“I just can’t wait until they say Alleluia! Then it’s Easter!”

Thanks be to God!  Alleluia! Alleluia!