This Lent and Holy Week have been different from the others, I'm not sure why. Perhaps because I'm exploring life and faith in different ways through EFM and Enneagram work this year. Perhaps because I am having different opportunities to see things through new eyes.
My EFM group joined me in a Children's Stations of the Cross last week, helping me see that liturgy in a different way and one that I could get my head around. I missed the noon Stations today, which were a social justice t format, and I hated that...but I was baking buns.
And tonight I attended the Family Good Friday Service at St. Martin in-the-Fields, Keller, where different youth from the congregation came up and acted the parts of various people (Mary, Mary Magdalene, Jairus' daughter). They left physical signs of their remembrances of Jesus at the foot of the big wooden cross in the chancel.
Then we all had a time to write or draw what we remember about Jesus. We were invited to go up and touch the cross and offer ourselves to Jesus. This made more sense to me than what I've seen called "Veneration of the Cross" in the Good Friday liturgy, without any discussion of what it means.
At the end, each of us was given a small piece of hot cross bun. We were to wait until everyone was served to eat them, and distributing took quite a while. While we waited, the daughter of a friend piped up to her mom in a loud stage whisper, "What IS this!?"
It was adorable and everyone chuckled. But, really, Natalie has it spot on. What IS this bread that we break to remember? How can this be? A mystery, right there in front of us, right there in our cupped hands.
Grateful to walk and wonder with the kids.
