Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all! I'm safely back home (and had dinner, and the first Easter chocolates), after our Easter Vigil at St Francis, Riverside. We did start rather early (at 6:00 pm), but some of our parishioners had to drive in from Beaconsfield, 40 km away; and our esteemed parish priest is 79 (though hale and hearty, thanks be). The Vigil – at which yours truly was thurifer (and, rather unexpectedly, extraordinary minister of the chalice! at least I was vested) – took just on an hour and forty minutes.

The Triduum has been beautiful, and promptly carried out: Holy Thursday Evening Mass took an hour and ten, and the Solemn Commemoration of the Passion on Good Friday an hour and a quarter. Neither seemed rushed, nor did the Vigil, and at all three liturgies there was plenty of good music; Fr Allan used the Roman Canon at the two Masses, so there was no skimping on the Eucharistic Prayer either: evidently, being a wise and experienced priest, he simply knows how to celebrate the sacred mysteries with devotion, but without tardiness.

I feel spiritually recharged, and look forward to celebrating Easter – all fifty days of it. Surrexit Dominus vere, alleluja.