Happy Easter Everyone!!

First off, happy Easter to everyone! I hope you had a great weekend culminating it a fantastic Sunday. This weekend is the most important celebration of the year to Christians. Friday was a particularly special day for those of us who attend St. Alphonsus Church here in Chicago. While the steeple is being repaired, the cross at the top of the steeple was also being re-laid with copper. Our Pastor, in his infinite wisdom, brought the cross into the church for our veneration of the cross ceremony on Good Friday. Here are a few pictures of the massive cross:

The cross itself has to be 12' high at least.

You may notice in this picture that there is a piece of copper protruding towards the camera extending from the cross. Because of the size of the cross, they couldn't safely put it right up against the kneeling area, so they were able to secure it further back and put this piece of copper extending towards those venerating the cross which would allow them to "touch" the cross, even if it's by association sort of. But that was really just for older, younger and shorter people. I was able to actually touch the cross AND a relic that was hanging around the cross: a small piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Like many relics, there's probably some faith involved with whether this piece was from the original or not, but still pretty cool. I touched both just in case.

Before Friday mass at 7:30, we stopped in next door for dinner. They have an all you can eat fish fry for $12, but look at the size of the fish!! Yes, that's one piece and it's about a foot long or so....maybe more. Obviously it some kind of processed fish, though it was still flaky like regular fish so I don't know what it was. Tasty though and that's all that mattered!

Tomorrow: Easter dinner(s) and the tale of Joisey Ken.