English-Speaking Catholic Community

Holy Week 17-14 April 2011

Palm Sunday   The Holy Week celebration began with the blessing of the palms on Palm Sunday.  The English-speaking Catholic community really has two centers so the palms were blessed at each.  Here Fr. Bob Wynne performs the blessing for the Sunday morning community which meets in an old large hall at the Khmer parish. The palms were blessed at the rear of the large open room and then there was procession to the front.  It isn't possible to bless the palms outside because the hall is up on the second floor.

Holy Thursday Fr. Charlie Dittmeier was the celebrant for this service.  We used the Korean Ecumenical Center because World Vision, the site we use for our weekend liturgies, will not let us start a ceremony at 6:00 PM because their staff want to go home.  The Korean venue is very nice for liturgy. The problem is that we need to transport everything we need for the liturgy to and from the building which takes a lot of advance planning, lists, and often several trips. The service went well.  Of the three Triduum liturgies—Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday night--this is usually the one with the least attendance, and tonight we had about 120 people. With all the running around trying to get things set up, I forgot to get someone to take pictures of the service.

Good Friday The Catholic Good Friday liturgy begins and ends in silence.  To start the ceremony, the priest comes into the sanctuary and prostrates himself on the floor.  Fr. Kevin Conroy was the celebrant for this service. The Good Friday service consists of x major elements: the reading of the account of Jesus' suffering and death, veneration of the cross, special prayers of petition, and a communion service.  This picture is of the reading of the Passion of Jesus (his suffering and death) in John's gospel by Janne Ritskes, Chrysant Scheewe, Fr. Kevin Conroy, and Shawn Kohl.

Holy Saturday Again Fr. Charlie Dittmeier was the celebrant for this service, and again he didn't arrange for someone to take photographs.  This time it was not forgetfulness but lack of time.  The Easter Vigil service is the most important of the church's year and the longest and most complicated.  Fr. Bob Wynne was supposed to be the celebrant but on Good Friday he received word that his mother was dying and he left that evening and Charlie inherited the Saturday service.  Bob had done all the planning and arranging--which was good.  It's just that Charlie didn't know what it was so the ceremony turned out to be a bit ragged and with a few faux pas.  But lots of people came, four infants were baptized, and Jesus rose so it was basically OK.

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