Reflecting on Spiritual Practices-SJT

While growing up, the week before Easter was filled with a variety of rituals and routines. We continued to abstain from meat on Good Friday and "gave up" eating chocolate and candy.  There were also spiritual practices during Holy Week that encouraged us to reflect. 

Palm Sunday was one of my favorite days of Holy Week. Mass was a joyous celebration honoring the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. Priests processed into the church while the parishioners waved blessed palms. The palms were brought home and transformed into small crosses and crowns of thorns. My mother and uncle created artistic treasures that I have kept for years. I  continued these practices with my own family. This year's palms were fresh and lovely but I forgot them in the car so they dried making crosses difficult. The long palms were added to an artificial bouquet in the foyer. and I had a braided cross from last year so I redesigned it to remind me of my mother's craft and the greatness of Christ's loving sacrifice for humanity. 

hands weave palms - a small act of love and faith

 reflecting

on

the

blessings

reflecting

on

HIS

Being

reflecting

hands weave palms - a small act of love and faith

©CVarsalona, 2023

During Holy Week a suggestion is to live as children of the light performing actions good, just, and true. (Ephesians 5:1-9) This message led me to reminisce on Jesus' humble action, the washing of feet, on what we now call Holy Thursday. This humbling yet powerful act is part of the Holy Thursday Mass and dates back to Jesus washing his disciples' feet after the Last Supper. 

Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, Drawing by  Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669),Drawn between 1640-1650, reed pen and brown ink, with some areas deliberately rubbed with a wet finger or wet brush; framing line in greyish-brown ink  © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Lesson Learned from the Washing of Feet Ceremony

Jesus came to serve, not to be served.

As a leader, He acted

with loving kindness

 and care for others.

Through actions,

He modeled

how to share

love. 

©CVarsalona, 2023

✍

This month's host for Spiritual Journey Thursday is the international teacher/poet, Ruth Hersey. She chose the topic, Origins, and posed the following question: What are the origins of one of your spiritual practices? 

After reading the above, you should understand that the origins of my spiritual practice go back to childhood. Through family practice, I learned the vastness of God's gift of unconditional love. As I grew, I realized that many people around the world do not understand the depth of selfless, caring love for one another. Thank you, Ruth.

Honoring Tradition

During my married life, every Palm Sunday my family would attend Mass and return home with beautiful blessed palms. My family would watch my mother take the palms and lay them in damp paper towels for crafting a bit later. When she was ready, my mother would carefully uncover the paper towel and start working in silence. 

My mother's hands were gifts from God. She used her talent to deftly craft long light yellow and green colored pieces of palm into beautiful handmade crosses and crowns of thorns. Each piece was different. Some were decorated with miniature roses made of ribbon; others had felt glued to the back of the crosses. All were created with love. As sacred signs of Holy Week, these treasures adorned my house. They were constant reminders that the Easter Triduum was approaching. 

My family attended Mass last night so I would have time to decorate the house for Easter today. My first step was to carefully take out a box of Easter treasures, palm crosses and hand-crafted eggs, some of which were either made or bought by my mother. Next,  I turned my attention to my palms. They were dry because I was too tired last night to place them in the damp cloth. I attempted to make them pliable so that I could craft the pieces into something other than a piece of palm. I cut the leftover pieces of palm and placed them in a plastic sealed bag to be used at Christmastime with the 1940's manger set. After years of family use, the straw for the manger needs replacing. The blessed straw pieces will be another reminder of the 2015 Easter season and a woman who was totally devoted to her family.

Since I am interested in preserving family memories, I turn to digital tools for the preservation of my artifacts. I successfully use PicMonkey as evidence by the first photo, but am a newcomer to Nutshell. Clearly, I need more work to be able to say I can utilize this tool with ease. No matter how many times I repeated the process, my narration was cut off in the beginning and at the end of every short video I made. If anyone can give me tips on how to master Nutshell, I will be an eager listener, or if there is an easier video tool that adds text please let me know.

I honor the tradition of turning the palms from Palm Sunday into living creations that highlight the significance of the Easter Triduum and I honor my mother's memory today. 

This post is offered to three different writing communities:

• Margaret Simon's DigiLit Sunday
• Cathy Mere and Julie Johnson's Digital Maker Playground 
• Day 29 of the March Slice of Life Challenge at Two Writing Teachers