Easter/Pascha

On Easter morning, I woke up to a sharp rapping on the door. Jonathan D. was pounding on it to wake us up. It was 07:30, one-and-a-half hours later than I intended to wake up. I was not pleased. Mike P. and I piled into the car as quickly as we could, and took off to pick up Lizzie and Emily.

All this because I left my cell phone in the M.'s van.

I raced to Old St. Mary's. I do hope that I didn't cause anyone to wet themselves, but I was so worried that two of the people in the car would not get to Mass on time. Emily and I were set for Mass, because of Holy Transfiguration, but Lizzie and Mike were not set. If they showed up too late, they'd miss Mass, and it would be my fault. I had a little less than an hour to drive about 75 miles, complete with all the stoplights on Constitution Blvd.

Just about 8:45, we pulled up to the front of Old St. Mary's. I dropped everyone off, and the hundredth prayer that we make it there on time escaped my mind. I went parking space hunting, and found a pretty good one. I walked into the Church, dreading that I would walk in just in time for the end of the homily.

Nope. Much to my surprise, Father had just walked up to the altar after the prayers at the foot of the altar. Apparently, Lizzie, Emily and Mike made it inside just after the Vidi Aquam; they probably walked in almost at the beginning of the prayers at the foot of the altar. Quite literally, my jaw hung loose for a second, and I just had to say a prayer of gratitude.

I joined the schola upstairs, but they were about to begin singing the Gradual, Alleluia and Sequence, so I didn't actually join them yet. I put on the cassock and surplice before the Credo, and joined them for the rest.

After Mass, we went outside, and met with Tom and Andy C. and their parents, as well as TJ and a few other Christendom students. After chatting with them for a while, I noticed that the screw on my eyeglasses' left nosepad was gone. I noticed this because I pulled off my glasses, and the nosepiece stayed on my nose, while the rest was in my hands...

I scoured the ground looking for the extremely tiny screw, and soon, I had the entire crowd doing this. I'm sure that, as someone said, it looked to everyone else like a "weird ritual" where all of use placed our heads on the ground for a short period of time...

After that, Lizzie and Emily and I left. We stopped at Christendom to pick up food stuff from Blessed Margaret's and Campion, then went to Dr. M.'s house to retrieve my cell phone from their van. I called Emma to see if she and Sarah were coming out to join the fun at Christine's, and sure enough, she was coming.

We all went to Christine's, and shortly after that, it really hit me that I was really tired. I could tell because I was still upset about being late in the morning. I went downstairs and plinked around on the synthesizer for a while. After not feeling too much better, I decided that now was a good time to leave.

I stopped back at Guardian Angel to pick up my tie clip, then headed back to Herndon. I stopped at Trader Joe's and picked up some food (because I hadn't had anything to eat yet), and then went back to the apartment and chilled for a while.

I fired up the Ten Commandments and watched that. While that was going on, I had my laundry running. I was flying home the next day, and I had a lot of stuff to wash and pack.

After getting the laundry all done, and the movie was finished, I went to bed at midnight.