March began as it always does with crazy weather. Shorts one day. Digging the winter coat back out the next.
I picked Timos up from school and we drove home. Later that night I got an email that school was going to be cancelled for a few weeks to let this new virus, Covid-19, do its thing and go away. Timos did not step foot back in the school that year.
I wish we had known the day we were driving away that this was actually good-bye. In a few weeks school would be done by computer with a few Zoom meetings thrown in. RCIA became virtual too. It was all so alien.
Even going to the grocery store. Some stores were only allowing one person per family to come in. Masks had not been mandated at this time, but some were already wearing them. The division between those of us who were not wearing them yet and those who were was jarring. And then there were the lines because only so many people were allowed in the stores at a time. It was just so instantly crazy.
But the worst unknown was how to handle second grade First Communion and the Catechumens coming into the church at Easter. So many disappointing delays and setbacks and worry.
It had been a joke that Timos was going to get to take Communion before us, but that ultimately ended up not happening.
I understood how Timos felt. I had been waiting to take Communion too. Every Mass we rose off the kneelers and stood in the aisle to let others out of the pew to go get in line. We then got back in the pew and knelt back down, alone in the pew, waiting.
I never minded the waiting. I was so comforted by the Mystery, by the eternal feeling of the Eucharist and I knelt and waited for my time to come into the Holy Catholic Church. When we prayed “Oh Sacrament most Holy, oh Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving, be every moment Thine” I prayed it with everything I was. I was so grateful, so thankful for this Sacrament and the waiting was so sweet and so gentle.
And then during the Easter Vigil, with a darkened, empty church stretching out behind us, Garen and I were brought into the Holy Catholic Church. As soon as Garen and I took Holy Communion for the first time Timos leaned over and whispered into my ear, “How was it Mommy?” He was so excited for me and so excited for his time to come.
The time did eventually come for the second graders. In late April, Garen and I got to walk down the aisle and take Communion with our youngest son. No words will every be able to describe how amazing and surreal that moment was. Timos was feeling so content and so protected by the Blessed Sacraments given to us by God. It was all done, he was “caught up” and so began the everyday part of our Catholic Journey.
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