Sacramental Joy

It was a day of Joy...

Sprinkled with a tinge of sadness...

It was no coincidence that we started our morning here at our Parish shrine with a prayer, asking Our Lady to deliver our requests to her Son, Jesus.  We prayed for all of the First Communicants and for some dear parish friends, The Silva's.  Mrs. Silva has been the primary First Holy Communion Catechist at our parish, teaching the Catechism for 39 years!  Her husband has been in Intensive Care and Mrs. Silva had been by his side every moment.  They have been married for 59 years.  She had been fretting all week about possibly having to miss the First Holy Communion Mass for the first time in 39 years. 

Just as we finished our prayer, we were greeted by another Catechist who informed us that Mr. Silva had passed away.  We felt that human pang of loss, paralyzing us for a few moments, knowing how hard this must be for the family. It was tough news.  Looking upward to the heavens, we paused with a smile through our sadness... and moved forward, knowing that Mrs. Silva would not want the children to be sad.  The Sacrament of pure joy is what she has devoted much of her life to.  She would want all of us to be happy.  The Silvas in their devout faith will be showered by pure love today, brought forth from many children receiving Jesus.

The church was lovely.

It seemed to reflect the sheer innocence and joy prepared for the children.

The Lord was beckoning "Let the children come to me."

And here they come!

They waited patiently with quiet excitement brewing!

They all delivered flowers to the altar for the Holy Family and Our Lady...

Princess was a bit nervous but honored to do the Second Reading.

Jesus, the Bread of Life was triumphant!

Princess was beaming with joy afterwards!

~Here she is with Godmother Aunt Leigh Anne~

(My youngest sister)

And we finally got a family photo...NOT perfect but at least we are all together! 

We had a yummy brunch afterwards...

Our Brunch Menu:

Prosciutto and Goat Cheese Strata

Mini Breakfast Muffins

Grape Skewers

Fresh Strawberries

Trinity Veggie Platter

Holy Cross Salami and Cheese

Sourdough Rolls

Triple Chocolate Fudge (With whipped white frosting) Cross Cake

I made the cake(s) the day before with a Cross cake pan...

It's a long story but we ended up with 2 cakes because 1 of them cracked in the middle.  It turned out we were able to fix it with frosting.  This was the original that we thought couldn't be salvaged...Believe it or not, we didn't have that much left over!

We gave out personalized holy cards for party favors...

My Mom framed the invitation and gave it to Princess for a little extra gift!  We dressed up and took photos prior to First Holy Communion.  Using one of these photos, I ordered invitations from Shutterfly. They actually have some nice First Communion designs!

There's nothing in the world like Sacramental Joy!

If interested, you may keep reading more about our weekend (Part 2)=

Busy and Blessed Weekend!