You'll have to forgive the disjointed nature of this post. I'm rather on an emotional high right now, so I'm going to be typing excitedly and I don't overly care much about coherency.
The ceremony at our church was pretty cool. They do a candle light ceremony for Easter. I have never been to one of those before. It started with the lighting of the fire then the lighting of the Jesus candle, then all of us got a lit candle which we shared with the rest of the congregation. My candle didn't want to stay lit. It went out twice. I was not to be deterred by an extinguished candle, however.
This entire time during Lent, the Church doesn't ring the bells during mass. This is like, my favorite part of mass, so it's pretty sad for me. I always wait for the bells to ring during the mysteries, but they don't for nearly two months. Then today, the bells just rang and rang. It was totally awesome! The bells coupled with the incense and candles made for a very surreal experience.
I think more than anything, the point in mass that really got to me the most, however, was being able to participate in the Eucharist finally. I have to admit, I cried. One has to understand that this has been an extremely emotional journey for me. I had always intended for my first communion in the church to be taken with my grandmother, but she passed away before this could happen. I still think she was there with me tonight.
Today is the last day of Lent. Jesus has returned from the dead and all is right with the world. I'll probably do a follow up post tomorrow just to finish out Easter anyway. Maybe that one will be more coherent. One can only hope. For now, I think I'm just going to go to bed. It has been a very long and very rewarding day.
Good night all, and hello to all of my new Catholic family!
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