Saturday 7 April 2012

Happy Easter Pageant

Happy Easter everyone, and at last we have had rain, and overnight the fields and trees seem to have sprouted and turned into their new yearly life and natural colours. Today the sun and rain have been playing games with each other, in and out all the day long. Letting us know that they are both important to us.



Easter, I have to admit that this year I haven't thought much about the meaning but I love to think that it is an important part of life that we should sometimes contemplate of why Easter happened.
Every Good Friday night in our small village there is a pageant held, about the Crucifixion of Christ. At one end of the town there is a tiny Franciscan church and that is where it begins, Jesus ( a local young man that has long hair and a beard) comes out of the church, very dirty, wearing rags, barefoot, chained to two other people, he is followed by a group of women, Roman soldiers on horseback and foot, a man with a whip,this is all very realistic and quite moving, as they travel down the main road towards another church, local people start to join the walk and the numbers build up gradually.


At every church (there are quite a few) they added something to the procession, like a wooden cross, statues, even a group that were wearing masks carrying a huge cross, after another long walk, by then the whole town is following and the atmosphere is very dramatic, we all reach a large staged area that has been made to look like a Roman temple where Jesus is tried by Caesar, there are lots of fires in pots and people carrying flaming torches, shouting people, accusing Jesus of betrayal, this was so realistic in the dark. I felt as though I was at the original trial, and felt so guilty.


Jesus was then crowned with a wreath of thorns and given a huge wooden cross to carry on his back, he had to carry this for a long way to a hill the other side of the village, the soldiers on horses were galloping around him and he kept falling over and was really being whipped, I have to say that by then I was crying, and so many other people were too.


We followed the crowd until we reached the little hill and this was even more Erie as Jesus hadn't arrived, there was a Roman soldier standing alone on the top of the hill, the wind blowing his cloak, he was guarding two wooden crosses that were being lit up by a fire, there was then the sound of jangling chains and Jesus arrived with all the women, every thing was so silent and the soldiers ripped off his rags and chains, lay him on the floor onto the cross and then stood it up, where Jesus just hung there in the sharp wind whilst they crucified the two robbers that were with him. The silence was electrifying, and we all stood an watched, so so moving, even though I have seen this before, I couldn't take much more so asked to be taken home. I felt as though I was really there.



For me,I found this kind of re-enactment of the crucifixion of Christ very heart searching and real. It isn't about being sad is it? it's about,happiness of a new day, a new life, a new birth.


So Im looking forward to tomorrow, my daughter and husband and grandchildren will be here with us, we have a huge, late breakfast of hams, eggs, cheeses, cakes, a little bubbly, exchange small Easter gifts and eggs then laze around or dog walk, until later, when we will all have dinner together.


I will then look forward to my new beginning.




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