Joyeuse Pâques!!

For anyone who is not Catholic, this post probably won't make much sense but anyway, after realising that there was no way I would be home for Easter this year, I thought I'd got to the Easter Vigil service here in Aulnoye. Since the Catholic Church is fundamentally the same throughout the world, I borrowed a Mass book from my church at home, so I would at least have some idea of the readings!

I have discovered that the churches here are grouped into Parishes, now were have Parishes at home, but it normally only includes one church, (maybe 2-3 in very rural areas) but here a Parish is made up of 4-5 churches, spread out over quite a large area, in the case of Aulnoye, over the surrounding towns/villages too. I found the church in Aulnoye not long after I got here, right in the town centre about 15mins walk away. Now if this was England, all the Masses would be held at that church, and there would be no problem. But here, it turns out that only the 18h00 Saturday evening Mass is held at St Martin here in Aulnoye, and the other Masses are held at other churches in the surrounding towns, which unfortunately are not easy to get to without a car.

And that was my problem with the Easter Vigil service, I had thought that since it takes place on Saturday night, that it might have been in Aulnoye, but no, it would be taking place in St Michael's Berlimont, the next town north of here, which was impossible to get to without a car. Undeterred I decided to go to the Palm Sunday Mass at the church in Aulnoye, and see whether maybe I could find someone who was going to the Easter Vigil service who would give me a lift. Luckily for me at the end of the service the Priest noticed that he didn't recognised me and so came over to find out who I was. As I explained that I was from England, he called over a couple who (apparently) the man had lived in England at some point in his life!! As soon as I explained (in french!!) my predicament for the following week, he said not to worry, he and his wife would give me a lift!! So that was great problem solved!!

So tonight I waited for them at 8pm and they came and picked me up and took me to the church in Berlimont. It's a beautiful church, quite old, but has also been refurbished recently so it looks really nice inside. All the people running round trying to get things ready defiantly reminded me of my Church at home! What surprised me thought was that there were lots of children there, not really young ones, but probably around 9-14 years, they were all sitting together at the front and they had sticks which they had decorated and lanterns which they had made out of Tin cans! We couldn't start with the fire outside like normal cos it was snowing (yes really snowing!!) so they just had a small one at the back of the Church and they lit the Easter Candle, then the children processed down the aisle with their sticks and lanterns and they lit everyone's candle as they went. The lights were all turned out so it was just lit with candles and it was really beautiful (this is my favourite part of the service anyway!)

It was a bit confusing, I tried to follow it in my English Mass book, but sometimes the words didn't really match, and so it was hard to find what they were doing. There are 7 readings in the Mass book, and most of the services I have been to have done at least 5, but here they only did 2, so that was a bit strange cos I was expecting them to do more!! It was also slightly different after the Renewal of Baptismal Promises, because in my church at home the priest goes through the church sprinkling people with the Holy Water, but here people went up to the font themselves and blessed themselves, it was nice, but it did take quite a long time, and defiantly wouldn't work with the number of people in my church at home!!

On the whole I managed to understand it, though it was strange cos even if I didn't understand every word, I still knew what they were saying and doing! It was really nice to see what other churches do because even though it was mostly the same service, there were little things that were different.

One thing that I found quite symbolic was that the name of the church was St Michael's, which is the same as my church at home! How weird is that!!

The couple that gave me a lift were really nice, and have even offered to take me out one weekend, Unfortunately I don't have that many weekends left here now, but hopefully I'll get a chance to meet up with them again before I go home.

Oh by the way the title 'Joyeuse Pâques' means 'Happy Easter' if you couldn't guess! It was quite funny cos after the service the priest came up to wish me happy Easter, and obviously wanted to say it in English (I must admit I don't quite understand why almost every French person I have met has tried speaking to me in English once they find out I'm English...I can speak french you know..you don't have to speak to me in English!!) but anyway, he didn't know what it was, so started asking all the other people round me, until I said, 'Oh Joyeuse Pâques en Anglais? C'est 'Happy Easter.' He looked a bit surprised that I had understood him (well...yeah..(see above!!)) and then said 'ah bon, 'Appy Easter'!! Ah well it was nice of him to try, though really I would have understood if he said it in French!!!

So Joyeuse Pâques everyone...try not to eat tooo much chocolate!!!