Easter Celebrations

Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    From now until Easter, there are a lot of spiritual renewal events built into the normal schedule of our parish. I hope you’ll do your best to participate in as many as you can. 

On the Fifth Sunday of Lent (April 5-6), I plan to celebrate the Anointing of the Sick at all weekend Masses. If you know of someone who would benefit from this sacrament of healing and forgiveness, please reach out to them and invite them to come to church with you. If they cannot come to church and would like the anointing, have them reach out to me or Julie Kruser and we’ll do our best to get there in the next couple of weeks. 

The following weekend is Palm Sunday (April 12-13), when we remember Jesus' triumphal entrance into Jerusalem and we read the Passion narrative. Please remember that the word “Prophecy” is pronounced prah-fuh-sigh not prah-fuh-see. It’s a verb not a noun, an action word not a thing word. Thankfully, it only happens once in this year’s reading from the gospel of Luke. I feel like this liturgy really encapsulates everything that will happen in Holy Week. 

Speaking of which, the following week is Holy Week, the most central celebration to our faith. On Tuesday April 15, the Archbishop will celebrate the Chrism Mass at the Cathedral in Dubuque. It involves blessing the oils we will use throughout the year and having the priests of the Archdiocese renew our promises to the Archbishop. If you’ve never been to it, I encourage you to make the trek to Dubuque. 

On Holy Thursday, April 17, we will end our Lenten fast and begin the great Triduum fast. We will celebrate the giving of the Eucharist to the church as our entrance into the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus died for us all so we needn’t die for our sins. We just have to eat his body and drink his blood so we may have eternal life with him. 

On Good Friday, we celebrate the one day of the year we are not allowed to celebrate Mass because we commemorate the death of the Lord. We, once again, hear the story of the passion (remember prah-fuh-sigh not prah-fuh-see) and conclude without a blessing. It all feels a little incomplete and unsettled. 

We rest on Holy Saturday morning before the sun falls and we have the great Easter Vigil Mass. This is a rather long Mass with several readings and people being brought into the church. It’s not for the weak willed but it really is an amazing Mass to be a part of. 

We’ll conclude with our regular Sunday schedule on Easter morning with a sprinkling rite and renewal of baptismal promises. Because each Sunday is a little Easter, these Masses don’t really look all that markedly different other than being a little more festive. 

Please note that, during Easter, my chant pattern will change such that we will rise on the Amen. At this point in my time as pastor, we have two different types of chant patterns that I vary from a simpler penitential (meaning Advent and Lent) pattern that involves a one-note response “Amen” and the more elaborate one that I use during the more celebratory times (Christmas, Easter, and solemnities during Ordinary Time) that involves on the “men” of Amen. My advice is to not think about which one you’re supposed to be doing because it honestly just comes naturally.