Remembering Holy Week and my Catholic upbringing

I was raised and educated as a Roman Catholic, taught by nuns throughout my grade school years in the 1950's and 60's. Even though I rarely go to church now, I do have fond memories of those activities. During Holy Week especially, certain events took place every year.

The blessing of the palms on Palm Sunday, and my mom always brought her palm frond home to display on the wall underneath her crucifix for the rest of the year. The mass on Holy Thursday with special scripture readings, with discussions on the Last Supper etc. The stations of the cross on Good Friday, with prayers and hymns as our priest stood at each spot in the church that commemorated those horrible events of Jesus' death. Also on Good Friday the religious statues and artworks were covered with purple cloth. Holy Saturday meant a mass and praying to saints for intercession, since Jesus was in limbo and couldn't hear our prayers.

On Easter Sunday, the purple cloths were removed and the Easter flowers were brought out to beautify the church. The Easter mass was packed with people who only came to church once per year. (Nowadays I'm one of those.) As children we were taught that Easter is the most important and holiest day of the year. After mass we went home and found out what the Easter Bunny brought us! Usually we went to visit grandparents or other relatives, and if the weather was nice we'd have a cookout.

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