Universalis

Saturday 22 March 2008

Blessing of Easter Food

The Lenten Fast is almost over and the Easter Feast is about to begin - and at 6.00 pm on Holy Saturday a Polish family came to St Thomas Aquinas Ham to have their Easter food baskets blessed.



This is a lovely custom, and I was delighted to preside at our little celebration. Chocolate was very evident in these two baskets - but there was also bread. The children insisted that I had an egg from each of their baskets - how kind, and I look forward to eating the chocolate tomorrow.

It looks as though I am in for quite a feast myself! I am due to sing the Gospel at the Solemn Mass at Westminster Cathedral in the morning, and this afternoon received an invitation to join the clergy for lunch - with the Cardinal as guest of honour. I had better publish my blog for Easter Sunday before lunch!

The tabernacle at Ham is open and empty - but it will soon be home to the Risen Lord whom we long to meet at the First Mass of Easter later tonight.

3 comments:

John the organist said...

Happy Easter and a lovely photo too! Enjoy the lunch Peter!

Anonymous said...

The lunch didn't seem to impair your ability to sing the Gospel at the 1730 mass. It was lovely.

Peter Simpson said...

It is very kind of you to say that. The truth is, the music had been thrown away at 5.30 pm, and I had to 'make up' the melody from memory! I had sung the Gospel at the 10.30 am and 12.15 pm Masses, and it was assumed that I would not be staying for 5.30 pm, so the music was taken out of the Gospel Book for recycling. The lunch was brilliant - you can get some idea of the quality of catering from Fr Mark's blog.