remembering Holy Week 2007 - part 2

Good Friday... arrived in church at 9am to collect the water dispenser, fill up and boil water in kettle... brought down all the coffee and tea packs and cups, and set up the day's meal for the group - our trustee loaf of bread. haha.

then the Ironing Ladies came and they ironed slightly under 100 garments. *cry* how is it that year after year, God sends angels?

i went through the 3pm service with one of my Elect, Shups... sweet, sweet Shups... one of the many happy, cheery ones who went through the journey almost 90% smoothly, only to be so tested in this last month... breaks my heart to watch them go through the same trials we did... we can protect them for the whole journey and we try so hard to... but when it comes to those pre-baptism days, we simply cannot shield them from the insane depression that overwhelms them... these feelings that we just cannot fight. or maybe it's their fight this time, not ours. as i said to a few, i'm happy they went through what they did. makes our faith hard-earned. we'll treasure it more....

it didn't rain at 3pm. it didn't rain at all.

the baptismal font was moved to the main Church. i still remember how last year, all our big guys were moving it and i was carrying like, tons of palm leaves to be stored away after the arrows to do that flew from parish priest to RCIA... and i was happily running past the ramp where they came up dragging the font on the trolley, until the part where it would've collided with the ceiling and so they had to carry it by hand.

they did and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM were struggling to hold on to their end, they were buckling and stumbling the whole time. i watched them, dumbfounded. and i think i'm seldom dumbfounded with them. next thing i knew, i ran away and i cried. what did i cry for?

for their dedication and work... for how their one extra pair of hands meant a job could get done... for how we are ONE.

this year, i didn't witness anything. except Bird Foo refused to let Mr C go near the font... haha and Mr C was complaining that nobody lets him do anything. well, but of course, if he was going to lose his already dead shoulder in the process.

"men down!" was what i had in my mind the whole time. bunch of grown men, in their 40s onwards... each with some injury or other, at hard labour. but what's there to do if there's no one else who will step up to help?

then we all laid the towels in Church. i remember that first year when i did everything myself. it wasn't difficult, except when i finished laying the path from the sanctuary to the exit, i literally couldn't get up. my back hurt. this year, looking at so many people, i am once again, reminded of how we have grown.

after all was done, we cradled the font lovingly and watched as it filled with what will become holy water the next night... Dom's choir was rehearsing and when they rehearsed the 'Gloria', the looks on our faces were priceless... to me. we stood around the font, hugging it, cradling it, touching it and we looked at one another and with the first note, without saying anything, all of us burst into song and sang the 'Gloria'. well, we got our little bit of resurrection earlier than the rest.

God loves us more! :P

it was great.

and Morning went and Evening went... one day left.