Alleluia!

Just had to say it because I can, happy Easter to all!

Funny how my departures from the blogosphere correspond perfectly to test taking madness...this time being no exception :) I am gloriously on Spring Break, having made it through finals week alive, and obviously long overdue for an update. When last I left you, I was getting ready to head to Yelm for our Life Teen spring retreat. The retreat was incredibly powerful for all involved, teens and adults! Our theme was Focus on God, and dealt with burdens and hardships, and how to overcome them. We had powerful sharings from adults in our group, a skit that left me absolutely floored and humbled it was so amazing, powerful Adoration, and a small group that I was so blessed to have, they were incredible. My retreat high continued into the next week, as I went to help a friend with her Confirmation retreat, giving a talk on the Gifts of the Spirit....I would have loved to stay all weekend, but finals week loomed ahead of me.

What better way to celebrate ending finals week, then entering into the most holy time of the Church year, the Easter Triduum. I was lucky enough this year to attend Mass or a service on every day starting Holy Thursday, then the reading of the Passion on Good Friday, and our parish's Easter Vigil last night. We welcomed four women who got Baptized, two adults and a six year old girl (one of the adults' daughter) doing their First Communion and a profession of faith and four more adults who got Confirmed. It was truly a joyous celebration of the Resurrection of Christ and is always my favorite Mass of the year. The use of the symbols of light and dark at the beginning and the readings that speak to us of our own history as a people, culminating in Jesus' resurrection...wow! And of course it just makes me want to say Alleluia!! I hope everyone has a truly blessed Easter and Easter season!

Weekend in the Woods

The woods being at a retreat center in Yelm. Hard to believe but our Life Teen Spring Retreat has arrived. I'll be on retreat with our high schoolers for the weekend, it promises to be a lot of fun as well as deeply insightful. Our amazing retreat team has been hard at work for several months putting this together and I hope that our group gets a lot of it. Please keep us in your prayers this weekend and I'll let you know all about it next week (which somehow, incredibly, is Dead Week, how the heck did that happen?)