Blessing of Water and Fire!

April 16, 2022

Black Saturday and it's a very important day and celebration of the church as it is the blessing of the water and fire so most of the churchgoers are bringing their gallons of water and also lots of big candles.

What I really like about this church activity is that I get to see an unusual cycle of the mass as it is only observed during Holy Week this kind of activity. If you get to attend these church activities you get to witness and conclude that this is the most important activity of the church as it is the time when Jesus gave us our salvation by sacrificing himself and being crucified.

I and my older sister arrived it was still 7:30 in the evening and the program/mass will start at eight so we get to see the church with the lights on and the announcer gave us some important announcements like don't put a flash on your phone when capturing for it can distract other people attending and put it on silent mode.

Then the light went out and the ceremony begins. The priest we're singing the intro and then lit up the big candle and then designate it to the lay ministers to share the light to their candles too.

At first when I attended this kind of event in the church way back ten years I was confused about why they needed to shut the lights out etc., etc. but now I get to understand why. Because the darkness symbolizes the beginning of the world and the candle symbolizes the light to shine in the darkness just like how God create the light in the world in the beginning(from the book of Genesis).

We then lit up the candles and since I am forbidden to hold my phone that's why I only captured the part where we lit the candle.

After that comes the ceremony and the three parts of the First reading and the Responsorial Psalm, they include it in three parts for we didn't have masses during Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and then today. The Gospel for Black Saturday comes from Luke 24:1-12. It's the day when the ladies went to the tomb of Jesus to change his clothes and put on some perfumes when they found out that His body was nowhere to be found and an angel appeared in front of them asking them why are they finding the living among the dead and added that Jesus has risen to which the women brought the news to the apostles and Peter came to see if what the women told were true.

After the mass where I had the chance to come near the altar and took a picture of the Holy Cross. In the entire solemnity of the mass, I always had goosebumps all over me whenever I laid my eyes on the cross. Just imagining that precious hands and toes were nailed to that cross and it's all because the people are so much sinful that he ought to save us from our sin. It made me want to cry just by seeing it.

Here is a glimpse of the front of the Church here in my city. A lot of oldies are doing their Visita Iglesia and this church we're one of the few that they mostly want to visit since it's facing the sea and is in control of the waves as most people would say.

I am mostly not stating about me being a servant and a follower. I mostly tell about my rants in life and everything. But being with the Lord and how I communicate with Him on a daily basis makes me want to not share it just to feel that my faith is intact within me..

Happy Easter Everybody.
Thank you for reading!!
Be blessed and be a blessing!

@mommykim