Triduum 2012: Good Friday

Our Good Friday started off like most others in years part....quiet and relaxing.  Brad has been so blessed to be able to take the day off from work for as long as I can remember and we spend the day as a family.  We start our day at the local Catholic cemetery with the living stations.  Our parish youth group does an amazing job acting them out each year and there is always quiet music and a couple hundred people walking in the foot steps of Christ re-living His Passion.

The weather this year was sunny, but very cool and windy.  Most of us dressed for it, but it was still cool.  As the kids get older and are able to walk the Stations with friends I find that I get to really focus more and more on them as I'm not keeping kids next to me.  This year Grant took Veronica in the stroller, Brad had Samuel and the other boys were all off, so for most of the time it was just me.  A rare quiet time that I enjoyed.

After stations we headed home for a quick and simple lunch before heading to 3pm Veneration.  Grant and Parker served at the Veneration service so we had some time at the church before hand so I took the opportunity to get some pictures of the other kids.

I tried to get Veronica to stand next to the boys, but she kept walking off, so you take what you get in these situations.

I took their pictures at the little statue garden behind the church and Veronica loved the little statues, she kept touching them.

And one of her in her cute dress, looking very grown-up and reminding me that she isn't really a baby anymore and definitely a toddler that is growing quickly.

And some individual pictures of the 3 younger boys

Veneration was very quiet and moving as it always is.  I am always amazed at how empty the church feels on Good Friday with the Eucharist gone.  It really is noticeably gone and empty feeling.  I don't think we realize how much we can feel Christ's presence in church until the tabernacle is empty that one day of the year.

After veneration it was time for dinner and then egg dying.  Since getting our own chickens, egg dying has become slightly more challenging.  Brown eggs just don't dye like the white ones, but I refuse to go and buy white eggs simply for egg dying at Easter.  So this year I found a site that talked about using Koolaid rather than your store bought dye set.  I thought it would be great because I could make the colors darker if necessary.  I got the dye and eggs set up and then got busy taking pictures and trying to make sure no one spilled their cups...getting intense Koolaid off of everything would have been a mess.

Grant was here, he just managed to miss out on all of the pictures.  I started calling him the "Elusive Grant" by the end of the night.  And of course the finished product....

Fall colored eggs.  They were so pretty though, especially the red made with Cherry flavored.  And it actually colored the eggs and didn't leave them a grey color. After egg dying and prayers it was time for little kids to head to bed in anticipation of a long night at the Easter Vigil Mass.  The adults and older kids watched The Passion of Christ.