Maundy Thursday, Good Friday 2015

Let the Holy Triduum begin!

Our Lenten Journey is coming to an end!

We washed feet on Holy Thursday before our Last Supper meal.

Everyone got a turn.

The kids loved hearing the story of the water jug and bowl.  T gave both of them to me on the night he proposed, and then used them to wash my feet.  It is such a special event to get them out every year for Holy Thursday and wash feet as a family.

Our Last Supper meal always seems to be a hit.  This is the one time each year when we get out the silver cups that T received from his grandmother for our wedding.   The kids love drinking their grape juice "wine" out of their chalices during dinner.  We read the Last Supper story and then cover all of our crosses.

Once again this year, T and I were able to find a babysitter so that we could go to our parish Holy Thursday service and then join in a seven churches visit with a large group of friends.  We are so incredibly blessed to have seven tabernacles within a three mile loop of our house.  This year, as last year, we walked the loop with friends, stopping at each chapel to pray and spend time with the Lord, remembering His night in the garden.  I can't wait for the kids to be old enough to join us, because the evening is such a powerful spiritual experience.  For now, T and I treasured the opportunity to do the walk together.

On Good Friday we made our peanut butter cross sandwiches.

 T took the day off, so we were able to enjoy and reflect on the day all together. 

We went to the Good Friday service at 3pm 

and then ate our simple dinner of bread and cheese, jam and fruit.  

Then it was time to finish our Stations of the Cross.  

"We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,

for by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world."

Happily Ever,

Queen B

Not alone in suffering

Our fasting and prayer yesterday on Good Friday were dedicated to our friends, recently married, who yesterday faced surgery for her recurrence of breast cancer. The fact that these dear friends, our age and just newlyweds, are faced with this unbelievable trial feels so wrong and unjust. As T and I fasted and prayed for her surgery as part of our Good Friday remembrance, we experienced anew the reality that we are not alone in our suffering. We have a Living God who suffered ultimately for us on a cross and holds us intimately in our suffering today.

Here is a excerpt from a note T sent to our friends in an email on the eve of her surgery. It is a fitting reminder for Good Friday:

"There is nothing I can say that will bring you more comfort than your knowledge of and faith in Christ. Our true human condition is certainly desperate at all times yet we tend to fluxuate between feelings of sheer invincibility and complete vulnerability. True insight into our delicate, even fragile nature is given sparingly and for that we must be thankful. Yet some of those who have suffered much are drawn so close to Christ as to occupy a position that he rarely, if ever, grants access to. It is a place only gained by trial and only understood by those that bear the scars of the journey. But make no mistake--it is a place of intimate and infinite blessing. You are given a place at the table where those bleeding meet a cup of blood and broken spirit meets broken bone. And then there He is. Your Host. The Host. And all He asks is for your trust and your love.

British pastor John R. W. Stott wrote the following concerning the God he knows and the suffering we experience. I referenced it in the eulogy of my father when he passed away a little less than a year ago:

"I myself could never believe in God were it not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the Cross.' In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after a while I have had to turn away. And in my imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wretched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside His immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His. 
 There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark - the Cross, which symbolizes divine suffering." ~John R.W.Stott

Please pray for our young friend. May the message of Good Friday: ultimate hope amidst ultimate suffering, be with you and point you toward the Resurrection power of Easter. God bless you.

Happily Ever,

Queen B