Tuesday, 06 May 2008

• I'm Back

  Christ is Risen!

    

  Lent, and especially Holy Week is such a busy time for me, some days I feel like I don't know which direction is up. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that I’m the head of the Altar Guild for my church. For those of you who might not know what that is, generally there is a group of people who are responsible for taking care of all the vestments and altar cloths, making sure that any color changes (light to dark, green for Pentecost, red for Nativity, etc) are done on time, organizing the decorating of the church for feast days, making sure that there are fresh flowers and making sure that many of the items used by the priest are ready and available when he needs them. The Altar Guild works closely with the clergy, especially the Sub-Deacons to make sure the priest's needs are all met as far as his "props" are concerned. I've only been at this for nearly a year (one year at Pentecost) now, so every time I prepare for a service it's new to me. Believe me when I say, I've learned a LOT this year and made more than a few mistakes along the way.

   

  Well, as you might imagine, the more church services that are crammed into one week, the more the Altar Guild’s services are required. I took both Holy Thursday and Good Friday off from my "regular" worldly job in order that I could devote more time to my Altar Guild job. On Friday, I ended up working about 7 hours in prepping for Pascha and then attended services for about 5 hours after that. Whew! I know that running the Altar Guild is a wonderful ministry, but by Friday afternoon my feet were crying “Uncle!” and I was beginning to forget about the ministry part and starting (to my own downfall) to just think about the pain part. Most of the liturgical year it's just me and a couple other women, but during Holy Week I have a band of about 15-20 people helping out with all the different services, yet it still seems like there's plenty for me to do as well.

   

  To keep my perspective focused my husband likes to remind me that many of the things I do as head of the Altar Guild (setting up for the Unction Service, setting up for the baptisms, getting the funeral bier set up for the Lamentations service) end up directly impacting the sacramental life of the Church. Yikes!!! It’s a humbling and sometimes overwhelming notion that what I do could potentially affect so many people. I pray that in the year to come I may remember this and focus more on how what I do celebrates the life of Christ and helps others in their journey to Him MORE than I focus on how what I do causes me stress and pain.

   

  INDEED HE IS RISEN!

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