Easter week at the oakie house was familial, feastly, and highly ecumenical. my little sister julie her and friend rachel came to visit us for their final collegiate spring break, which was great. originally, they had promised to help us put together the oakie house garden. but touring/shopping/church-ing won out, and so we just watched ben build the raised bed & stir the dirt. thanks, bg!
church-ing was quite diverse this year. sadly, we missed monday’s chrism mass at st. matthew’s cathedral. but we made it to wednesday’s haunting tenebrae office of shadows at the dominican monastery and maundy thursday footwashing & communion with our anglican church, st. brendan’s.
to my great happinesss, this year we finally joined in Sacred Heart’s famous multi-lingual Good Friday procession through mount pleasant. lit effigies of Mary & Jesus were hoisted and carried in the streets, led by members of the spanish-speaking community playing the roles of Christ carrying His cross, Mary & John, the centurions, and golgotha mourners. at the very head of the procession, acolytes hoisted a draped cross; they were followed by the smaller haitian and english-speaking communities. at points in the procession, i was standing in the midst of all three languages: each distinct and hearty, yet blending with the others in its praises. there were children, babies, parents; even my eighty-something-year-old friend laverne, who also comes to daily mass, made the entire pilgrimage. meanwhile, father stephen, the shrine’s head pastor, led spanish-english rosary and prayers for the neighborhood, victims of our neighborhood’s recent five-alarm fire, and the immigrants in our midst who are struggling for justice, for work, and with deep homesickness. it was beautiful.
the fire prompted a major re-routing of the parade, which brought the odd blessing of processing past irving street’s new condos and 14th street’s gigantic DCUSA Target complex. in one run-down apartment building, a middle-aged hispanic man leaned off a balcony, aiming his cell phone down at the crowd as if piping our prayers and songs to a long-distance friend. half a block down, two befuddled hipsters stood on the procession-flooded sidewalk, staring and slack-jawed. i’m assuming they came to columbia heights for the bar scene; instead, they watched us, and later i saw them tripping along with the parade, not talking to each other, in awe of the crowd even as they were enveloped in it.
earlier this week, a good friend mentioned with some rue that she was headed to the suburbs to see a multi-million dollar mega-church Easter pageant. i thought of her and of that huge pageant, probably not unlike the pageants at my first childhood church (very different from the tiny one where i spent most of my formative years), as my sister and i marveled over the care and talent that the hispanic community, especially, lavished on the Good Friday procession. there was no room for ironic judgment, for giggling over homespun costumes or tacky banners: everything was made beautiful through considerable sacrifice.
the good friend who went to the suburban pageant came to the oakie house on sunday afternoon for our Easter feast.
“how was the show?” i asked.
“you know,” she said. “it was beautiful. all of the work they put into it, all of the fervor. i expected to be embarrassed or appalled or something, but i was really moved.”
speaking of the feast, Easter vigil at the bug’s church (complete with a gourmet early-am party!) and Easter dinner were great! Dinner marked the second big holiday meal we’ve hosted at the oakie house, and it seems that we’ve already established a rhythm: eat late and long, linger at the table for conversation, pass around the babies, play football in the backyard, and then, when everyone’s stuffed and giddy, convene for speed scrabble — and, if you’re really hard core, writing goofy 7-minute poems with the winner’s words. sunday’s edition of speed scrabble included champagne, so you can imagine how boisterous the game got.
the week was exhausting and fun. apparently, the sacred heart friars take Bright Week off, so there’s no 7 a.m. mass this week. Ben and i began the day quietly with prayer together in bed, and it was a sweet way to start the week.
3 Comments
March 25, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Wow. You had quite the Easter week – it sounds beautiful. Our Church doesn’t do an Easter vigil service yet, but maybe next year. I hope so because it is a favorite of mine.
March 27, 2008 at 10:08 pm
yay! I am glad you went to the procession and that it went by Target. I was thinking about it Friday night and wondering how cold everyone was!?
Also, as a liturgical fundamentalist, I will note that last week was Holy Week and this week is Easter Week. Just fyi. They cover that in the last part of RCAA part that you dropped out of. I am kidding. I love you. Also, Easter Week, this week, is supposed to be all holy days of obligation. That means every good Catholic is supposed to go to mass every day (like on the major feast days). So the sacred heart friars better get themselves back to work, yo!
March 27, 2008 at 10:31 pm
i STINK! this is even worse than being a serial pajamas-to-mass person.