One of the things I miss about my childhood is Holy Week.  I attended a rather strict Catholic grade school.  We went to Mass everyday during the school year.  So, you can imagine, Lent required strict observances.  Looking back, these traditions and rituals  were very interesting and they created continuity.  I celebrated Easter the EXACT same way my parents did when they were kids.  And best of all, I did feel holy and close to God during the Easter season.

My family’s church, Saint Mary’s Nativity, was built by the Joliet Croatians.  My grandma was a student in the first class of the church’s school.  It was common for your name to end in “ICH” or “IC”.  It was common to come from a large family.  It was common for your dad to work at the steel mill, the gas or electric companies, or other blue collar jobs.  We Croatians were loving, faith-filled, do-anything-for-you, friendly families.  It was a great community.  We had our own special food, music, dancing, drinks, and prayers.  It was neat to have so much in common.

I remember being taught by the priests and sisters that Easter was the most holy holiday, and that we should anticipate it more than any other holiday.  I secretly felt bad because I liked Christmas much better.  Christmas was happy and upbeat.  Easter was solemn and sacrificing.  Christmas was singing Little Drummer Boy, while Easter was singing Were You There When They Crucified Our Lord?  That is just too much sadness for a first grader.  We also did the Stations of the Cross every Friday during Lent.  My knees would kill me from kneeling for an hour.  I always felt I would have been Veronica, who wiped the face of Jesus, if I lived back then.  Easter really made me think deeply.

On Thursday of Holy Week our class would have to go back to church for an hour in the afternoon and pray the Rosary and go to Confession.  On Good Friday, we did not have school.  My mom would have us turn off the TV and radio and be silent from noon until three o’clock – the time Jesus spent on the Cross.  That evening would then go back to Church for another Stations and to kiss the Cross.  I remember how fascinating it was to watch grown men and women get down on their hands and knees to kiss the Cross on the alter steps.  I saw how real their feelings of devotion were.  It made a huge impression.

Easter had some joyful events, too. Croatian families would traditionally make their own special Easter sausage and a wonderful sweet walnut roll called potica.  We also colored eggs and put out our Easter baskets.  On Easter Saturday, my mom would wrap up the sausages, the potica, the colored eggs, and the ham and put it in her special basket with a lovely cloth on top.  Back again to Church to have our basket blessed.  I would check out the other baskets and, of course, ours was the best.  Easter Sunday meal, after Mass, we would eat the food that was blessed in the basket.  From Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, I was in the church everyday contemplating Jesus’ death and resurrection.

I find myself missing those simpler times.  My old church is now Mexican families from the local neighborhood and devoted long-standing parishioners.  The school kids only attend Mass weekly.  The Lenten traditions that do remain seem to be more of a “if you want to” kind of a deal.  Sad, but my kids cannot say that they celebrated Easter the EXACT same way that I did.

The pearl in all this is to try to keep some traditions.  At Easter and Christmas, or any holiday that your faith observes, traditions are comforting.  Traditions bind the past and the future.  When they stop, there seems to be a void.  And the memories they make are priceless.  I treasure my Holy Week memories, and I wish I was in the kitchen right now watching my mom make potica.  She knew how to keep traditions.

God Bless you and your family this Easter.

Saint Mary’s Nativity

Window photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash