Holy Week in Canberra

It didn’t really feel like the same as it was back home. The holy week started with Palm Sunday and we were given cut pieces of palm at the start of the mass celebration. There were no fancy designs of weaved coconut fronds, as what I was accustomed to seeing in the Philippines at this time of the year. Apparently, they don’t grow coconuts here and had to therefore divide the fronds among the churchgoers.

I personally wanted to continue the Bisita Iglesia tradition my family observes back home so J and I went church-hopping after lunch on Good Friday in Canberra. Surprisingly, there are quite a lot of Catholic churches in our diocese, which made it all the more easier for us to accomplish it. I guess it isn’t really practised here because the churches were empty, though still open to the public.

I know back home it is terribly quiet during Good Friday and almost all of the shows on TV were on biblical stories that we can never seem to get enough of. Here, malls were closed but you can still catch your favorite shows on TV.

We concluded the season of Lent by rising early last Easter Sunday and proceeding to the Old Parliament House grounds to catch the first day of the Canberra Balloon Fiesta. It was a crazy negative four but all that trouble was worth it. (Click here to view photos that we took on that day.)

Overall, it was a pretty hectic long weekend for us as we had to attend two parties last Saturday and Sunday as well. Also, we met up with fellow PBOz member Pam and her hubby Dave who came all the way from Melbourne. Too bad, we couldn’t show them more of Canberra ourselves as we had to rush off to one of those parties I mentioned.

Hmm, now that didn’t sound like Holy Week at all.