So, now that the pageantry is winding down, what were the liturgical highlights and, for that matter, lowlights, of your Easter Season?

In 2001, the lows for me were attending a Lutheran Maundy, having my heart flutter with relief at the familiar sight of basin and towel sitting at the foot of the altar, and then discovering that we were going to do a ceremonial ***hand*** washing. Right after reading the Gospel:

 Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, 
 but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, 
 He that is washed needeth not save to wash his FEET,
                    The King James Version,
                    (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769. 
                    (emphasis mine)

Is it just me, or is this a little *too* much reduction for good liturgy? Almost as bad as attending the Holy Saturday Exultet service in broad daylight, since we are far enough north here, and Easter late enough this year, that sunset came long after most of the 19:30-scheduled services were over. What's wrong with a Midnight Mass held sometime closer to Midnight?

The highs were, first, going to my old church for the Exultet (our second Exultet of the night, and we would never have even come near if any other church had offered an actual *night* service). They lit a proper bonfire in the churchyard, and processed the light properly into the church. There's a new priest there since my time, who sings beautifully, so the actual Exultet was fantastic. And we got a deeply symbolic Anglican Eucharist, with a reverently proclaimed consecration, with a common cup, and real wine even for Anne. Since Holy Saturday Vigil isn't a 1662 prayer-book service (and is therefor "new" and "non-traditional" despite having been the practice of the first-millenium church), the judgementally traditionalist crowd was mostly unrepresented, and the lunatic fringe Traditional crowd were out in force. So, Anne and I were made very welcome, and enjoyed being able to fellowship with her and Rachel's godparents (Rachel was unfortunately left behind to work on keeping her temper, a struggle she has had to deal with lately).

The second high was actually baking, and managing to get to church with, my Easter Bread. It rose beautifully into a gorgeous even cherry-stuffed wreath. This is a big deal because haven't found the enthusiasm to bake an Easter Bread since the Easter Sunday that we were asked to leave Saint Stephen's; so it was a breakthrough, and a recovery from a little of my woundedness, and a little -- a very little -- offering in acceptance of my Lutheran sojourn.

The subxequent year, our Vigil was a rather aenemic affair. We went in to the fully-lit nave, and after several minutes of detailed instruction, the lights were extinguished and the Easter Candle -- lit from a BIC lighter in the Narthex -- processed in before our eyes had had chance to adjust to the dark. I wonder why they have drifted away from the awesome drama of previous years. Perhaps it is just too much work (that seems spurious to me though), or perhaps it has too many pagan parallels (which I heartily love -- pagan means "of the countryside", and God is as present in the meadows as in the cloister), or perhaps it's just too uncomfortable and undignified to stand around in the churchyard being lashed by the Wind. The Exultet was still awesome, though, and several people made a point of coming up and greeting me as though I were a long-lost cousin.

There was no asperges and no baptism, alas! In the old days, Mother Julia used hyssop (another pagan parallel I suppose), IIRC correctly, as often as evergreen boughs; down at the Cathedral they have a nice clean silver aspergum -- like a silver baby's rattle with piercings through the ball, so the Dean can sprinkle his congregation without quite so many drips on his pretty robes.

One of the pastors on Liturgy-L was doing an immersion baptism on Easter Sunday; his biggest question for that list was: what does one wear in the water if you're the one administering the Sacrament, and do you go change out of your dripping cassock before celebrating the Eucharist! I believe the answers were; you do take off your alb, and you do put on a dry cassock afterwards <g>.

Because I was down in California until late Good Friday night, I missed most of the other drama of Holy Week, too. I was very pleased that Dean led the girls through their little Agape (seder memorial) meal, which is a nice domestic memorial of the Last Supper. They didn't go to church that night, and I don't even know if the service would have been Maundy and Stripping the Altar; but they washed each other's feet at home, and that's a very pretty little custom, too. And he did take them to Good Friday services, although again the services weren't the Way of the Cross or the Tre-Oro. Some Lutheran churches *do* hold those services, but ours is far to the Evangelical end of the ELCIC spectrum, alas.

Still, I think Dean did a pretty great job nurturing the girls' spirits while he was single-parenting at that special time. I'm pretty proud of him.