Easter

The last three years I’ve taken the train into DC to spend Easter weekend at George Washington with my sister.  Even though we’re only an hour apart we don’t really have time for lots of visits during the semester so being able to spend that weekend together has been nice.  I don’t know what’ll happen next year since she’s graduating in May and might not still be in DC next spring.  My younger sister will be about an hour and a half away at school in Pennsylvania so maybe we’ll be able to spend Easter together next year.  It’s been especially nice that I’ve been able to spend Easter with my sister because I can’t really go home for the weekend. (I could, it’s possible, but spending at least 6 hours at airports/flying for about two days at home is a bit stressful.)  I think it’s gotten a bit easier to be away from nearly all of my family during Easter but it was really difficult freshman year.  I remember starting to cry while talking with our chaplain (who is really a terrific woman) on Ash Wednesday that year about Easter and Holy Week before I was sure I’d be going to DC.  I had never been away from my family during Easter and it made me sad to think that I wouldn’t be home to go to church with them during Lent and for Holy Week like I’d been doing my entire life.

For as long as I can really remember I’ve loved the time around Easter, particularly Holy Week, and I think a lot of it has to do with the priest we had at church for most of the time I was growing up after we moved to Maine.  He always stressed reverence and during Lent and Holy Week he also emphasized the solemnity of the season before the great joy of Easter.  The solemn rituals of the Lenten season and Holy Week most of all I really came to enjoy and find very meaningful.  Unfortunately I don’t think I realized that appreciation until he was moved out of our parish and we were given a priest with a rather different style.  I hope that someday I will find a church wherever I end up where I find that solemn Lenten reverence again.