Happy Holy Week!

Well I just came in from going out with my machete to chop palm branches for Palm Sunday and it made me realize I hadn't posted here for a few weeks, so here we go -

First off, you cannot imagine how much I appreciate the support staff at St. Timothy's during Holy Week. Music issues and liturgical planning issues are all screaming through my head while, back in Norwood, a team of dedicated folks deal with all these details. Not so here on Andros, let me tell you. Cutting my own palms is just one of many details.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me try to catch up on a few things that have happened over the last few weeks. First is Jr. Junkanoo. I may have mentioned this before but we finally got our cable back that allows us to download pics from our camera so I wanted to share these with you. Junkanoo is usually a Christmas Mardi-gras like celebration and it is huge here. In the sping the children all over the family islands have Jr Junkanoo competition with costumes, bands, floats -the whole nine yards. Here, for example, are the junknaoo drums that have been set out in the sun so the goatskin can stretch and create a better sound.

These are actually old garbage cans, and oil drums that have been decorated with actual real goatskin stretched over the top. We have 2 in our church as part of the music ministry!

Here is an example of one of the floats.

You cannot imagine the amount of time and energy it takes to make one of these. Put about 20 kids in home made costumes behind the float, with drums, horns, whistles, cowbells - all dancing up a storm and you begin to get an idea of what Jr Junkanoo can be. Add about 10 of these floats and the party can go on for hours.

Leaving Jr Junkanoo for a moment - I have told you that CCD pretty much dominates our mid-week workload. All the support we got from home helped us to restore St. Gabriel's church in Calabash Bay and we have been using our new Fr. Gabriel Roerig Parish Center for classes.

Here is a pic of the building mid-construction

Here is a pic of our first Marriage Prep class that we held at the Parish Center. We've come a long way baby!

Most family island parishes send their engaged couples to Nassau for Pre-Cana. Its a real feather in our cap that we were able to do our own class locally. Having done marriage prep for several years at St. Timothy's in Norwood gave Ginni and I a wealth of experience that we were able to put to good use in this class.

Most recently, the Archdiocese of Nassau just held its CHRISM MASS. This is the liturgy where the Archbishop consecrates all the holy oils that will be used over the next year. Here is a pic of the consecration that gives you a nice view of the sanctuary and the crowd of priests and deacons around the altar.

Here is a pic of the recessional with your's truly in procession. What was a treat for me at this liturgy was that I was selected as one of the Deacons to bring up one of the oils and present them to the Archbishop for consecration. It was a honor to be asked and I was thrilled to be involved in such a way at such a sacred moment.

Well, enough for now, this will be a crazy week for sure. We will welcome new Christians with baptisms during the Easter Vigil, and bring others into full communion with the Church through Confirmation. This year we will also do First Penance and First Communion during Easter so it will be a joyfilled day. (We learned to do First Communion early when, last year, we didn't see a priest on Andros for 4 months after Easter!)

Pray for us - we certainly need it! Till next time