Pentacost Celebrations 2015

Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth!

~Psalm 104

Somehow, the Easter season always goes by faster than Lent.  We have feasted and celebrated for over 40 days now: five family birthdays, a First Communion, Divine Mercy Sunday, Mother's Day, Ascension Sunday and many more.  It is always hard to begin to put away the Easter season decorations and celebrations.  But today, we made sure to culminate the season with a grand Holy Spirit celebration to usher in the routine of Ordinary Time.

For breakfast, we enjoyed our traditional Pentecost fare: marshmallow cereal, yogurt and fruit smoothies.  This is the one morning each year when I buy marshmallow cereal, which I love, and it reminds us of the Fruits of the Spirit that the Holy Spirit  brings into our lives.  Then, we headed to a special Mass, met friends to hand out Pentecost roses at an Uptown bus stop, hosted friends for lunch and then celebrated dinner with MoMo and Papa.  Our joyful spirits and schedule were undeterred by the rainy day.

I made T's favorite Strawberry Pizza for dessert, a Grandma Johnson classic treat.  I left the frosting bare in the middle in the shape of a dove to remind us of the Spirit descending.  It was a wonderful way to finish a special day.

It is so fitting that we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit at the end of Easter and the return of Ordinary Time.  Ordinary Time isn't so much about days that are boring, but about finding or returning to an ordered routine for our lives after seasons of fasting and feasting.  During these weeks of Ordinary Time, we strive, with the help of the Spirit, to find a proper place for moments of fasting and feasting and to grow the Fruits of the Spirit in our daily lives.   All this is so that we might know and love God and our neighbor in a deeper, fuller way.

Christ our Lord said it was better for us that He should ascend and send the Spirit to descend into our lives.  So, we've replaced our family Easter prayer with one for the coming months:

Come, Holy Spirit!

Happily Ever,

Queen B