Good Friday

A blessed Good Friday to you all, dear readers!

Despite our best efforts, my family and I were unable to go to Good Friday Mass since our bout of the norovirus still has us feeling a little off. Successfully, we were able to go to Stations of the Cross at our other Carmelite church. This is always an event we look forward to because the procession goes around the property and its very involving.

I got many pix of the procession, though not at all the stations. It was quite lovely to do this little procession on one of the holiest days of the year.

The altar of repose, where the Eucharist is placed to symbolize Jesus' burial

First station, led by our homeboy padre (in red stole) and two guest Carmelite brothers from the seminary in California

Carrying the cross

Our padre invites the men in the crowd to join in carrying the cross

My hubby is at the front of the cross, barely visible from this shot

Second station, hubby (in headband) holding up the cross

Third station. The man in suspenders is a visiting priest from the UK, though he's in plainclothes today.

Our padre invites the women to carry the cross. I'm at the end in the white shirt and black-and-white hat.

Me helping to hold up the cross at the Fourth station

Our homeboy padre leads the kids in carrying the cross

The youth/young adult group carry the cross

Eleventh station. We sang the Salve Regina at this station since our padre had been leading us in a Rosary in addition to the traditional prayers and this was the end of the Rosary

Thirteenth station. Almost done

Hubby helps carry the cross inside to the Fourteenth and final station.

As an added bonus, we got to show our homeboy padre our cholomobile. He was pleased to see it since a vehicle of that vintage would have been a common sight in his childhood. He gave us a blessing and we went on our way. It would have been nice to stay for Mass, but we were totally beat. That being said, it was nice that the Mass was gonna be in the evening, unlike the absurd morning hours which were set for the Stations and Mass at the Latin Mass church. If we had been in better health, we definitely would have stayed for the Mass.

After we got home and ate fish for dinner, hubby and I put the baby to sleep and watched "The Passion of the Christ". This is an annual tradition of ours that began on Easter weekend in 2012, before we were married and were still in the friendship stage of our relationship. This movie is also tied to our relationship because it was after we finished watching this movie that I asked my then-friend now husband why he'd never been married and he responded that he'd prayed for a wife but she never came. It was then that a voice, completely unprovoked, came into my head which asked "what if I'm meant to be your wife?" That question would be answered over the course of the next few months, but it was the beginning of my first real relationship and my liberation from my family.

Have a blessed Good Friday and Easter weekend.

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