We are getting ready to head to Matty's Aunt's house for the annual O'Shea Easter Brunch (note the picture of the awesome cupcakes I made!). There will only be seven of us this year (yes, I said only, read on), but I can't wait to see everyone and eat some of Jane's amazing cooking. Easter is a very important holiday for us Catholics, and even more for us Catholics over on Quint Avenue. I present to you, an Easter story:
Two years ago today Matty and I went to Church together for our first time. I was a pretend Catholic (having never been baptized or through Catechism) who hadn't been in a Catholic Church in a long time, and had never been with another person since moving to Boston. Matty had been away from the Church for a while for a lot of the reasons young Boston-bred Irish Catholics stop going to Church. We both decided we wanted to go together, and since our schedules were pretty crazy back then (Matty worked nights, I worked bankers hours), Easter turned out to fit perfectly for us to go to Mass together. So, off we went; I was super nervous since I had never been to Church with a willing-to-go significant other, and since I was a pretend Catholic, I was nervous I would mess up the Mass traditions (sit, stand, kneel, sing, etc.). But, being the prince that he is, Matty not only made it a wonderful and intimate time for us, he also managed to track down the one Cadbury Creme Egg left in the neighborhood to present to me on our way to Church. *side note: Cadbury Creme Eggs are my thing, and it just doesn't feel like Easter without one.
So, Cadbury in my belly, we went to Mass and it was beautiful. It was super bonding to go together and, unknown to us at the time, set a wonderful tradition that would end in my becoming a real Catholic and us getting super involved in our own Parish, but that is a different story...After Mass, Matty had invited me to go to his family's annual Easter Brunch, which I had no idea translated into meeting everyone in his family, no really, everyone! Aunts and cousins and sister and everyone! We had been together two months, and I already had his family tree down pat by the time we left. It was an awesome crash course in being an O'Shea, which has come in handy as I am about to become one myself.
So, here we are, two years later. One year ago I was made a real Catholic at the Easter Vigil and this year I was a Lector as Matty and Kendra (who deserves her own blog soon so I can gush about how much I love this girl) sat with our Parish in our Church, with the people we have come to know and worship with every week. This is the Church that we will be married in soon, the Church that we will baptize our babies in and the Church that has provided us with everything we were looking for when we went hand-in-hand to Mass two years ago. As Jesus was resurrected today, so was our faith together that day. How truly blessed I am to have such love and happiness in my life.
Happy Easter everyone.
XoXo
Happy Easter to you all
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