Triduumazing! Part I: Holy Thurdsay, Batman!

There are many words in this English language- Words I love to use, say, and write with, but of course, there are some loopholes: Words I can never spell, remember the meaning of, and on some levels, not even pronounce. Among those words I can't pronounce correctly to save my life are synonym (I always end up saying cinnamon), inanimate (Something like Inehmenet), and then, triduum. I usually don't trip over the syllables, but every time I have to say it, I have to say it SLOWLY.
If you're about to name one of the most important times of the year, I say to at least make it something little kids can pronounce. I mean, at least make it something I can pronounce. I know its Latin roots and how important and meaningful the name is, especially in the "tri" for three days and the "duum" because... Well, I think it's just because it's cool to have two u's right next to each other in the same word.
So either for the fact that Triduum is a cool word that I can't pronounce, or that it is, in fact, one of the most important times of the year, so you can expect a three-part series of posts, one for each day of the Easter Triduum.
So my Holy Thursday story starts during mass yesterday, when the washing of the feet commenced. There were two priests, who got six "apostles" each, and went around through the aisles, washing the feet of the parishioners, and somehow my family ended up making up 25 percent of the twelve. Now, I'm an only child, but I do have a big family (I have enough cousins to make up for my lack of siblings) Plus an aunt, uncle, both grandparents, and of course, my parents, totaling the family count to 11.
All of the feet-washees' positions were evenly spread throughout the church, sitting about three rows apart on alternating sides, so they wouldn't all be clumped together and out of sight of the people sitting far away. And that kind of scattered the family throughout the church, but it ended out that my youngest cousin, Mary (4 years old) was put with my Nana to watch her get her feet washed. And I suppose that's about where the story really begins.
Once Father Ted reached her, he knelt down to wash her feet like he had done with anyone else, while Mary looked on, dumbfounded. Her face was classic, eyes wide open, mouth slightly agape, and so many thoughts flashing through her eyes as well as the words that might as she might as well have said: for the first part: What the heck is he doing to her feet? Another thought: Why the heck is she letting him? And last but not least: THIS NEVER HAPPENS IN CHURCH!
From that point, the mass concluded and we continued to tour churches around the city and pray in the presence of the exposed Body of Christ with my parents and grandparents.
But getting back to Mary's astonishment at the washing of Nana's feet, I must say that we can very much take an example from the awe-stricken four-year-old. Wonder and Awe is a great gift of the holy spirit that makes itself present at confirmation, but it's an amazing thing to see manifested in a little girl who hasn't even been confirmed. It was obvious Mary was confused. Wondering what Father Ted was doing to Nana, but I also want to hope that she knew it had something to do with Jesus (we were at church) and wanted to know the connection between this bizarre act and Jesus, and that's the curiosity I wished a lot more people had. How does Jesus make himself known in this? We see humbling acts. A child walking a boy they he barely even knows to the nurse's office after he fell on the playground at school. A woman holding the hand of her elderly grandmother as she walks her down the halls of the nursing home. Even a priest leaning down to wash the feet of the people he leads at church. People see these acts of humbling kindness and probably think well of the helper to themselves, and feel sorry for the person being helped, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of them go on without making the connection between Jesus and those good acts. They go without the childlike curiously of it. If we go about prayer and looking at life the way a little girl like Mary would, there'd be more purity out there, and we'd all be closer to God. Jesus told his apostles to let the children come to him, and that they were the purest of the crowd. So maybe we could learn something from Mary and other little kids like her. To look at life with simplicity and purity. To have a pure soul and unrestrained curiosity of what connections Jesus has between his world and ours.

Pretty Sucky State Appraisals and Why I Now Hate Sulfur

Teenagerdom. The word automatically associates itself with angst, hormones, puberty, and when all that is over, more angst. This post isn't as much about the "altar girl" side of me, but the "teenage" side, the side that seems to only ever be bothered by two things: school and other teenagers. Those are obviously giant groupings, neither of which encase tomatoes or my dog, two more things that irk me to a very great extent, but if I come home in a bad mood one day, you'd have a pretty safe bet that it's one of those things. This week, being bed-ridden with a very unpleasant stomach virus, I was just lucky enough to miss the PSSA's, the Pennsylvania standardized tests. That acronym has been pounded into the heads of us poor PA schoolchildren since our conception, and I'm willing to bet that only half of us know what PSSA stands for. I count myself in the less knowledgeable half, having somewhat of an idea, but none as to which "S" goes first, "standardized" or "system". What I think it SHOULD stand for is the title of this post.
Anyway, being absent for these vitally important assessments certainly will not get you out of them, I learned that the hard way. I walked into school today with the slightest flicker of a hope called "exemption", only to find out that the "testing window" ends in two weeks, and I don't know what I want to do more: lay sick in bed for two more weeks or just take the stupid things. Looks like just taking the stupid things won out, more for the fact that my mom would start to get suspicious after day 10 than actual will. So I finally surrendered today and skipped my first two and a half periods to make up the first half of these dang tests.
Now, since I didn't miss much class time because all of it was sacrificed for the sacred tests, I probably suffered the greatest fallback today while making up the tests, which means I spent 3rd period sitting alone in the hall catching up on reading the Diary of Anne Frank for English. And of course, when I moved onto science the next period, I found that we were burning sulfur as a lab experiment, and for all the non-chemists of the world who don't have any idea of the significance, it stunk. Not just in the way the PSSA's do, but it literally stunk. Like, take the smell of a dozen rotten eggs, multiply it by 10, and you get what my science classroom smelled like today.
The smell was overpowering. One of my classmates joked that he was going to be sick, and of course, returning to school after a two-day, stomach-flu-induced vacation, so was I- literally. I toughed it out for, say, the first half of class and performed the majority of the experiment I missed with my lab partner, Beth, but the smell just became to much for me at some point and I quietly asked my science teacher to be excused and then briskly exited the stinky science room, never realizing how sweet the usually stuffy hallway air could smell. But I still felt sicker than I had in days, and after a drink from the water fountain to try and delay the inevitable, I finally lost the fight with my gag reflex, losing the bread and butter I had for breakfast and the water that never really hit my stomach. So much for making everything up. I got a grand total a period and a half in. So I told my science teacher, who kindly exempted me from the lab (at least I got exempted from something...) and sent me down to the nurse, where, apparently, my stomach still hadn't forgiven me for the sulfur incident. After two instances of blowing chunks, the nurse called my mom to come pick me up. Ten minutes later, I found myself on our family room couch, snuggled in my comforter, watching reruns of Bones for a third time. At some point, I got restless and had to get up and do stuff- let's just say that, for once, I was glad to do my chores. I can actually see the floor in my room, and I count on it staying that way for a whole entire 3 hours. Maybe 4, since I'm going to bed soon.
So no screw-ups at mass or calamities in an alb? I'm sure something along the lines of "what the heck are you talking about here?!" is going through your mind at this point, and I think I'm finally getting to that. There will be times in life where you have to do things you don't want to do. And there probably will not be times when sulfur makes you barf. But luckily for me, I had both, and I'm not being sarcastic. I'm not even being sarcastic when I say I'm not being sarcastic. With PSSA's to make up, stinky sulfur to deal with, and the inability to keep down your bread and butter to wrestle, when the heck did I have time for God? I was too busy fast-forwarding through the recorded Bones episodes on my DVR and fretting about the Pretty Sucky State Appraisals. God? I'm very ashamed to admit that he was one of the last things on my mind in these past three days.
Meanwhile, there's everyone from the little kid, wailing in pain while battling cancer at Children's Hospital to the man that's working his butt off to prove to his boss that he doesn't deserve to get laid off, for the sake of his wife and kids. And you always hear stories about those people- the ones that would give anything for the stomach flu and PSSA's in turn for what they have now- sticking to loving God and trusting that he will bring them through the pain and pressure that they are enduring. Why? Because God is the one that brings you through all of that. Prayer, petition, meditation, trust, and love are the stuff of magic. There are survivors in this world who have stood through harder things unwavering, the ones who have stuck with trusting God to bring them through their suffering. It's hard to endure some things that the world is plagued with, and with that, it's easy to turn your back and blame God for all of it instead of leaning on him. But it's the right thing to do. And in the end, you will emerge stronger, better, and closer with him if you do. So looking back, a little more prayer and a little less complaining and fast-forwarding would have done me good- although I still hate sulfur.