Holy Saturday...

What to do?

Even as a little kid I had trouble getting over the trauma of Good Friday, thus on Holy Saturday, I usually felt a deep sense of spiritual solitude, which is best understood as loneliness, although it isn't exactly that. Early on I developed a particular devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows for this day, which seemed to assuage my feelings of emptiness. I would go to church in the morning, but it seemed so empty for me; all the statues still covered, the altar bare and the tabernacle door open. (When I was little, the Easter Vigil always began at 11 PM, not early evening as it is now.)

My family really didn't celebrate Easter in a big way, except my mom always made sure I brought Easter water back after Mass - she was sure it was miraculous. Of course, we had Easter baskets too. Yet, unlike the photo above, we never had a priest come to bless our Easter food, nor did we bring the food or our Easter baskets to church to be blessed. Although, it is nice to know this custom is still observed in many traditional ethnic parishes.

Funny Story...

So one Holy Saturday, after returning home from a visit to the church, I arrive to find my mother all verklempft because my dad was not back from the store yet. He had left the house about 9 AM to pick up some things for Easter. Finally, around mid-afternoon he called, and my sister answered the phone. She handed it to my mom saying it was dad - I could tell by her expression it was going to be nutty.

"You're drunk!" My mom shouted. Then they argued a little, evidently my dad was explaining why he wasn't home yet and was calling to be reminded of what he should pick up at the store. According to his story, he was gone for so long because he had been helping the police look for me all day. He was back at Piggly Wiggly talking to the manager and it turned out, according to dad, I had stolen a bush from the store and everyone was looking for me. (Remember, it was a grocery store, not a garden center.) Even my mother had to laugh, in fact we were all laughing after she got off the phone because the story made no sense at all.

Anyway - she said she would meet him at the store to make sure he got the right stuff. We waited, but they never got back home until after the bar closed that night.