Update time

Ok, I guess since I promised you an update, I should post something. Jeez, you all are demanding.

First Easter Break. Holy Thursday was good, pretty standard, except we did something different from all other years in my memory. In years past we brought Jesus from the tabernacle and set him out for adoration off to the side in the church where Mary's statue stands normally. There He is adored for a couple hours, then brought to the chapel in the rectory. Normally that's what happened, or at least under the old pastor. But he got transferred to another parish in DC.
So now we have De as pastor. De has made several changes in the church since arriving, most of them not good. He did something with the lights, spending $10,000 to replace lights that, as far as the parish was concerned, worked fine. There are other things too (see previous post concerning living nativity in Christmas Eve Mass) but this was different. So this year for Holy Thursday, Jesus was processed out of the sanctuary, down and all throughout the church, and brought into the Crying Room, where the temporary tabernacle had been set up.There He reposed, accesable for private adoration. This was odd, but I could live with it. Besides, He was just going to be placed in the tabernacle in the rectory soon. No worries. My family left before he normally would've been processed out of the church. Such was the end of Holy Thursday.

Little did we know what De had decided concerning the cimborium.

Good Friday
Good Friday came. It was a busy day, for my brother had two performances of the teen group's living Stations of the Cross, one to be done at our old pastor's new parish, and one done at our home parish. He played Jesus (rather well, if i do say so my self). So the original staging for the stations has the men carrying the dead Jesus away, depositing him in the Crying Room. Well, I went in there to check to make sure all was well in there, that they actors would be able to put him in there, etc. Lo and behold, there in the room were the tabernacle, table, and extinguished candles. Hmm, thinks I. I open the tabernacle, thinking to myself "he wouldn't have forgotten. Please tell me he didn't forget to move the cimborium with Jesus in it. I opened up the tabernacle door, and behold, there is the cimborium. I left, and told Mom, who goes with me back into the Crying Room. I open the tabernacle and show her the cimborium. Well, she asks, is it empty. My mother, remember, is probably more traditionally Catholic than I am when it comes to these things. I said i didn't check. So I put my hand in my sleeve, and lifted the lid of the cimborium slightly, then closed the lid, closed the tabernacle, and bowed low, asking for the Lord's forgiveness.
He was still in there. They never brought him out of the church.
Well, decided my mother and me, the actors can't go in there. Jesus is there. So now what? Well, I'm not sure. I think it all ended up well. I didn't watch where they put my brother's body.
So we went to Good Friday service. Ah, Good Friday. When even the most ultra extreme traditionalists use terms like communion service to refer to the official Church function. No Mass, remember. So we get there to service (this just feels so awkward to say) and everything goes fine, and the Body of Christ is distributed to the hungry hearted. There were even traditional type songs sung, like "O Sacred Head Surrounded," which I did not hear before comming to the College. So again my family departed the church, knowing that we would return the next night for the Vigil, since my brother was serving, and my sister reading one of the readings.

Holy Saturday (Easter Vigil)
Vigil time. Fr. Parochial Vicar, a type traditional priest who is scared of making waves, sang the Exsultet beautifully. Then at the Gloria, he intoned it in Latin, and Emily and I continued it in Latin, until we stopped, and looked at each other. The Choir had continued the Gloria in English. We sang along in English, saddened. We only read 3 old testament readings, not all seven, which bummed me out. During the Canon (we used Eucharistic Prayer 3), Fr. De dropped the ball when it was his turn to continue the prayer at the end, so the poor souls in purgatory were left out. Thats ok though. My family still prayed for them, as did Fr. Par. Vic. During distribution of Communion, the choir sang one of my favorite songs, Ubi Caritas.
Except it was in English. It didn't translate that well: ibi est doesn't go into English that well.
At the end of Mass, when there is normally a final Blessing, where the Priest sends you out, well, we kinda skipped that part.
The bright side: One more person came into the Parish. I love it.