Easter Egg Fun Before Palm Sunday

Our apartment's management gave the kids an early Easter treat yesterday.  Understandable, they also wanted to spend Easter with their own family and spend the holiday in their own home.  Just a little bit info of what this Easter egg tradition is:

In Christianity, the celebration of Eastertide includes Easter eggs symbolizing the empty tomb of Jesus: though an egg appears to be like the stone of a tomb, a bird hatches from it with life; similarly, the Easter egg, for Christians, is a reminder that Jesus rose from the grave, and that those who believe will also experience eternal life (source: Wikipedia).

In my country, we spend Easter going to church and remembering the life of our Lord.  Sure we heard and have known it's associated with these colorful eggs but I seldom see children with their families gathering for an Easter egg event.  But my kids loved the idea.  By the time we saw the announcement, they never stopped asking me to buy them basket for the eggs.  Well we attended it alright, and man, was I glad.  The kids enjoyed picking up eggs (just 10 eggs per kid as specified by a girl to them after she noticed their basket overflowing with eggs) and playing the games (my girl won first place in a race) while I did what the other parents were doing... eating the candies inside the egg (no kidding, nice huh... LOL!!!).

We went to church today, deciding the last minute since we woke up late (as usual).  It's Palm Sunday and we agreed to go to a church in the vicinity, St. Pius V in Pasadena.  We arrived in a noon mass (just in time) but (yup, there's a but)... the mass was in Spanish (not our first though), and we can't understand a thing.  there's nothing much we could do so, we just made the best of it and that's to pray.

After the mass, we attended the blessing of the palms.  It was just like in the Philippines where everyone's gathered outside the church and the priest reads the bible passage of Palm Sunday.  Then he blesses all palms (but unlike in our country, the palms used in the ceremony was not formed into crosses) and attendees with holy water.  However, there were various palm crosses sold in a sidewalk outside of the church where we bought one (reminds me a lot of home).

Anyway, more than the physical representations, knowing the essence of Palm Sunday should be in utmost importance.  Our Lord teaches us that we should peacefully settle any disputes or disagreements.  War should never be an option.  And with the present happenings around the world, I pray that it would be realized that there are more pros than cons if we choose peace over war.  For the children's sake.  Yahweh bless.