This year we have had a very untypical Lent and Holy Week.
Quarantine has helped us to stop and to spend more time praying the Word of God. This time has been a blessing for us. God speaks to us more clearly than ever or, better said, he has opened our ears to hear what he is saying to us. We discover Jesus coming to us with love both in his Word and in what is happening in the world. When we read the Bible we recognize that God is addressing us, here and now.
Thanks to all the years that we have been able to participate in the Holy Week and Easter liturgies and nourish ourselves on the wealth of its symbols, we felt we had our hands full and were able to continue to do so despite the limitation of not being able to go to church.
On Holy Thursday evening, we sat together at the table. We read the Gospel of the Last Supper, we broke bread between ourselves, homemade but not fully baked bread. We drank some bitter herbs and sweet wine, explaining the meaning of these Passover symbols to each other. Then Grzegorz, the head of the family, washed the whole family`s feet.
During the online transmission of the Good Friday liturgy, we gathered under the crucifix that we have in the living room. Our adoration of the cross and our worship took place there. It was a symbol for us of the one Cross on which the Salvation of the world took place and which continues to save us. Our daughter Gosia played the guitar.
On the night of the Easter vigil we rejoiced in the fact that Jesus is not enclosed in the four walls of our parish church and that neither the virus nor the prohibitions of these days stop him from reaching us. Even though the doors were closed, Jesus broke through the walls of our home and we experienced his presence in the joy that we felt expressed through singing, dancing and clapping, and above all, in the love between us.
This shared experience took place in the middle of our daily life, which has its conflicts, differences of opinion and childish fights, but which also includes cooperation, spontaneity, creative proposals and games. We have been positively surprised that our children, and several are teenagers, wanted to participate with us in the masses and celebrations online. There are nine of us altogether: our children who are aged between 6 and 23 and the two of us. That is a larger group of people than are officially allowed in the local churches.
We have the opportunity during this time to strengthen our relationship as spouses and to get to know each other and our own children a lot better. We want to announce that Christ has truly risen in our daily lives, in the small gestures and experiences that lead us from death to life.
A Servants of the Gospel family:
Magosia, Grzegorz and children- Ania, Aga, Olga, Micha, Rafa, Monika and Dawid.
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