Holy Spice of Life

Variety of traditions make family celebrations of Passiontide, Easter memorable

From Staff Reports

The universal Catholic experience of Holy Week and Easter holds so many things in common, with the liturgies and rubrics each day the same in every Catholic church worldwide. But within that shared commemoration is room for Easter traditions unique as the families that celebrate them: cultural or customary foods, prayers and practices that help them to mark the occasion in varied and meaningful ways.

Chito Sarrol

Corpus Christi Parish, Willingboro

Chito Sarrol, parishioner and music minister in Corpus Christi Parish, Willingboro, recalls with fondness the celebrations of Holy Week and Easter in the Philippines, where he and his wife Hermie grew up.

“As Holy Week starts, one noticeable tradition is that either no music is played, or at the very least, only somber music can be heard until Easter Sunday,” he described. “Palm Sunday signals the start of the celebration with handmade ornate palms outside the church,” which are then used for the celebration of Palm Sunday Mass.

The Filipino practice of visiting seven churches, called “Visita Iglesia,” takes place on Holy Thursday, Sarrol noted. Then on Good Friday, the “Pabasa ng Pasyon,” or Reading of the Passion of Christ, takes place to commemorate Christ’s suffering and death. “The reading is attended by a group of devotees and ends at noon on Good Friday, or at 3 p.m., coinciding with the time of Jesus’ death,” he said.

“Easter is celebrated with entire family attending Holy Mass,” Sarrol continued, “followed by a family feast usually held at the home of the matriarch or patriarch of the family.”

Julia Cwalina

St. Hedwig Parish, Trenton

For the Cwalina family in Hamilton, Easter is about faith, family and the celebration of beloved Polish traditions. One of the traditions that Julia and her family celebrate each year is the “Blessing of the Easter baskets” or “Święconka” which occurs in St. Hedwig Parish, Trenton.

“On Holy Saturday morning we go down to church and we bring a basket of food. The basket is filled with bread, eggs, meat and other food that all represent something,” Julia Cwalina, 14, explained.

According to the Polish tradition, and shared by many Eastern Europeans, the basket, which is decorated with flowers and ribbons is lined with an often-embroidered cloth that symbolizes the shroud that covered the body of Jesus in the tomb.

Inside the basket, the egg symbolizes life and the Resurrection; the bread is symbolic of Jesus; the butter lamb represents Christ; the salt is purification, horseradish symbolizes the bitter sacrifice of Christ; ham or kielbasa is a symbol of joy and abundance.

Julia, her parents and her brothers take the basket to St. Hedwig’s where Fr. Jacek Labinski, pastor, says special prayers for the food as he blesses each basket.

“After the food is blessed, we take it home,” Cwalina said. “Then the blessed food is what we eat Easter Sunday morning.”