Grace

I shall always look back on the Holy Triduum of this year as a life changing time for me. It was an intense and beautiful experience. Cedric asked me, Do you feel different? I am different. Maybe there is something to it, he mused.
My faith was so weak when I started this process last year. I can attribute this to living so many years with an agnostic. His unfailing rationality did whittle at my intuitive belief in a higher moral order, not that I’m complaining. In the end my faith is so much stronger for it, and is always checked by my intellect. I can look at the truth, and I’m not afraid. Fundamentalists have the weakest faith, so stubbornly clinging. I don’t claim understanding of all that God is, but I believe He is moving us toward something. Cedric doesn’t have the gift of faith, and I believe there is a reason. He says he is immune to religion. I tell him, you keep me balanced. We are happy opposites.

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We worried about the success of Louison’s baptism, as the rehearsal was an absolute disaster. He became hysterical when he understood what Father wanted to do. No water! No water! he screamed and ran through the pews, covering his head and falling to the floor in an emotional heap. Hmmm. In the end, it was Lou’s Godfather (in the right, in the photo) that came to the rescue. He let Lou fulfill his dream of climbing up in the choir loft and promised him an Easter basket of goodies, if only he would consent to the water. We held our breath for the nighttime Mass.
When the time came, it went off without a hitch. Father said Lou, are you ready? He was. He covered his eyes with his little hands, and the whole congregation chuckled (except those who had seen the rehearsal, they sat in slack jawed awe). His Godfather kept his word, and right after the event, he received his basket of candy. He sat in the front pew, devouring nearly a pound of chocolate as I went through my confirmation. After that, I told Cedric to take him home, as the Easter vigil is a long and late Mass.
After the ceremony, congratulations and gifts were given and pictures were taken. As I was leaving the near empty church with Bernie, Father called to me Hey, where’s Lou? I explained that it was really quite a late night for him, so he was surely already in bed. Then father turned to the person beside him and said You should have seen him this morning, running out of the church screaming No Water! He looked like he was possessed by Satan. Indeed he had.