Easter
I remember two years ago, it was Lent and we were spending our holiday in the Philippines. The Lenten season and the Holy Week is celebrated quite differently in my home country especially in the provinces. In the Philippines, there’s the traditional “Pasyon” or the singing of the “passion of Christ” in the homes. The Stations of the Cross are not only limited inside the church or the church grounds but rather on the streets where the re-enactment of the Stations of the cross takes place on Good Friday. In some provinces, devotees turn themselves into flagellants and some even emulate Christ by having themselves crucified each year during Lent. But after all the sacrifices and acts of penance, people always look forward to Easter Sunday, a day that symbolically marks our rebirth in faith. It is a time when look forward to renewed hope and spiritual healing.
On Easter, families usually celebrate at home; some go to the beach for a swim and barbecue. If we were in the Philippines, we would have done the latter. Now that we're here in Qatar, we were invited to celebrate Easter at a friend’s place. We had a lot of food and the children, all 6 girls and a boy had fun with the Easter egg hunt. All the kids took the egg hunt seriously and with a little help and coaching from the grown-ups, they were able to find all the eggs (well almost). Everybody had a good laugh because the parents were as eager as the children to find the eggs. It was almost like we were egg hunting as well. Xianelle ended up getting 3rd prize with Isabella. They were all happy to get chocholates for their prizes. We stayed until 7pm and left to attend mass at the PSD (Philippine School Doha). Unfortunately, there wasn’t any parking space available and the venue was so packed that a lot of people were outside the premises. It was then we realized that we couldn’t possibly hear mass. If it were just me and Tian we would find a way to squeeze ourselves in. But having a little girl with us just made it quite impossible. So we decided to just go home.
We did have a great time with our Easter celebration. I just wish that we were able to hear mass.