On Holy Week and Triduum and Solar Eclipse

Some day I will have grandchildren, so I had to get my own copy of: My Book of the Church's Year! I know, excuses, excuses to buy books, especially children's books :) But Peter Kwawniewski echoes how I feel about giving children (and adults) the best books. Consider how we spend Lent with three practices: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. How beautifully Enid Chadwick shows that these are our weapons against the devil, the flesh, and the world respectively. She creates space to ponder the Mysteries of the Faith with all the details in her artwork.

This was perhaps the best Lent ever, bar our first when we were in RCIA; my niece is being received into the Church this Easter Vigil. Her marriage, too, is being convalidated. She will receive the Body and Blood of our Lord. So much to celebrate! Glory, glory to God! 

This Eastertide is special for another reason--signs from heaven. Fr. Ripperger has a wonderful reflection on the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8th, the fact that its path takes it through the towns of Jonah and Nineveh. If this isn't a call to repent and turn to the Lord, I don't know what would be clearer. I especially liked that at the end, Fr. Ripperger reminds us how God created. He calls upon the waters to bring forth the fish and the earth to bring forth plants and animals. But when He creates man, He says, "Let US create man in our Image." He points out that if you take a fish out of water, it dies; if you take a plant out of the earth, it dies; and so it follows that if you separate man from God, he suffers a spiritual death. Anyway, Fr. Ripperger packs a lot in 11 minutes. For a more detailed description of all the cosmological things going on, see: Guest post: Laramie Hirsch on the April 8 solar eclipse – Nurse Claire Says. Granted, I have a fascination with numbers and names and coincidences but I've come to believe that there are no coincidences, simply signs from God. We should do as He commands in the Garden of Gethsemane: Watch and Pray! A Blessed and Happy Easter to you! 

Check out these cool maps! I like the patterns they make, the letter A, which is the beginning of the alphabet (aleph; I'm reading a fascinating book Alphabetical: How Every Letter Tells a Story by Michael Rosen), or the X's where a place experiences two solar eclipses. Just don't ask me to explain the difference between annular and total solar eclipses :)