Easter Season

What a beautiful Easter Vigil we had this year at St Joseph's!

One of our Altar Servers teased me afterwards (you were all spazzed out!) because I always cry during the Baptisms. Well, I can't help it.  I have been part of the team shepherding these people for over a year.  I have watched them grow in their Faith from people simply seeking some love to people who have found Love itself.  They come to us as children of darkness and with a full immersion and the words, "I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of The Holy Spirit" I see them reborn as children of the Light.

And then we get to go eat cake.

I mean, come ON!  Who can pass THAT up!

It is sad that so many people have walked away from the Light over the years; however, Easter Vigil always reminds me of my own journey.  Raised in Truth and then fallen into sin and darkness, I remember when it dawned on me that all I was being taught in my 12 Step Program had been given to me in preparation for my First Holy Communion.  I remember thinking, "Why didn't it work? Why did I become a drunk? An addict? A first class scuzz bag?".  Later, it hit me that unless I HAD become all those things I would not be the woman of grace and dignity I am today.  I had to learn I cannot take on all comers, conquer the world, pull myself up by my bootstraps ALONE.  Others may be able to but I cannot - I need God.  I need His Church and the Sacraments and the Liturgical Life so freely offered by Holy Mother Church.

I cannot rely upon people - whether it be a priest or a lay person, a parent or another family member - for peace and love.  I have to fully rely upon HIM - the God who loves me so much that He never leaves me an orphan.

Whenever I go through still another East Vigil, I am always struck by its beauty, its Biblical strength and its Awesome Authority.  I am always struck by the blessing that is mine - the blessing of being a woman of the gutter, someone who fell so far no one would touch her.  I also get why I can still be such a target of derision.  No one likes a loser to stand up straight again if that loser has the audacity to say, "I was wrong the way I was living my life.  I may never be rich or pretty or thin or even secure in my earthly life.  I am secure, however, in my conviction that Truth is not something, it is Somebody.  I am secure in my conviction that the Jesus did not found churches, He founded a CHURCH.  I am secure in my willingness to never, ever leap out of His Hands again."

I wish all of you a Happy Easter. Spring is in the air....GO GIANTS!