Holy Saturday Rest and Preparations for the Easter Sunday Celebration

2016 lamb cake

Preparing for Easter family dinner is a favorite time -- the celebration and feast after the fast, the assurance that joy is the ultimate fulfillment of suffering.

I was up early this morning because I woke at 5:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. The sky was just beginning to lighten when I came downstairs. Is that the way it was that first Easter morning as Mary and the other women came to the tomb? Quiet except for the birds chirping as they began their day?

Prayers, coffee, a peek outside to make sure the bee yard rests undisturbed across the field, a pat for the dog who isn't ready to get up just yet.

And now the preparations. The lamb cake mixed and baked and ready to be iced. The turkey breast in a bowl of cold water to defrost, anticipation of the grandchildren coming to color eggs and help decorate the lamb. And Jesus and Mary at the center of it all.