To God be the Glory: Growing Towards a Healthy Church

Apr 8

The following pertains to ideas and suggestions such as why is there a paschal candle, or what is the significance of the ‘Easter basket, all of which you may want to participate in, or discuss with, family and friends as we enter this Holy Week together.

The Origin of the Pretzel

The use of pretzels as a symbol of praying children, and the story of their origin, can be a great aid for teaching the benefits of prayer to children. The pretzel was created by a monk who would reward children for learning their prayers by giving them bread rolled into the shape of children with crossed arms in prayer. See page 61 of Mary Parsons’ Cookbook.

The Paschal Candle

As a Sunday School project or at home, take a beeswax candle (less apt to chip), and wrap some colored vinyl hobby tape around it in blue or red or gold to make the candle festive. Then with a nail or a nut pick make five holes in the candle in the form of a cross (with three in line horizontally and one on each side of the center hole). Place five whole cloves in the holes to symbolize the five wounds of Christ. Next add the year in numerals, with the first two numerals placed just above the cross (slight separation) and the third and fourth numerals just below the bottom of the cross. Making this Paschal Candle in Sunday School, and then taking it home will help us understand the link between home and church. Most Anglicans see the Paschal (Easter) Candle lighted at the Easter Vigil, but aren’t aware of its significance. Just as we light our Advent candles at meal times during Advent, why not light a small “Paschal Candle” at our tables during the Easter Season. Burn it only a little each day so that it will “stretch” over the fifty days of the Easter Season.

This is only a brief summary of some of the possibilities for Lent — but perhaps some day, once again I will hear from a whole new generation, “Bishop, I love Lent.”

Easter

Alleluia Christ is Risen!

It is impossible to find a way in which we can appropriately proclaim our excitement regarding the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our customs and traditions are mere reflections of our joy in respect to Jesus’ triumph over death. As is the case with most of the tension between Secular celebrations and Christian celebrations, Easter Sunday is the first day of Easter and not the last day. The secular calendar is based on pre-season shopping, not seasonal enjoyment.

We have been blessed in being able to serve in parishes where many wonderful traditions existed. Easter Sunday is now the time to light the Paschal candle that we made in Sunday School or at home during Lent. The candle represents the bursting forth of Christ from the tomb to be the light of the world once more and forever. There is the custom of where we can, at home, simulate the passing of the light from the large Paschal candle to each individual family member, as we did at the Great Vigil of Easter in Church.

Traditions are remembered by children, and Easter, as the Queen of Feasts, gives us an opportunity to rejoice with unrestrained Joy.

Blessing of the Baskets Filled with Traditional Food

One originally Eastern European custom occurs on Holy Saturday, when after Confessions are heard, baskets filled with traditional home-made food items are brought to the Church to be blessed at the Altar by the priest. The baskets would contain a number of foods, which then would be eaten at the Easter Dinner the next day. The purpose of the custom is to show the direct relationship between the Altar Table and the Dining Room Table — the church and the home. The priest would normally have a small knife, which he would use to carve a cross on an egg custard called – Pascha. Some people would bring in a braided bread, which had a colored egg on top. The egg is usually red to represent the shed blood of our Savior Jesus Christ. The bread would then be shared at the Easter Dinner. This custom of blessing the baskets, of course, could be done after the Great Vigil, late Saturday night or after the Easter Sunday morning Masses. Sharing the contents of our Easter baskets, which were blessed in Church, adds a special joy and connection between church and home. Perhaps braided Easter Bread, with the red egg on top, could be an appropriate centerpiece on our Easter Tables.

At our churches we started a tradition of asking the children to bring in their Easter baskets, on Easter morning, to be blessed and to offer thanksgiving to God for the bounty that we have. It has been our experience that children enjoy taking their baskets to church to be blessed by the priest. Any opportunity to demonstrate the relationship between the church and the home is important in the formation of Christian children. Additionally, this was an opportune time to enjoy the tradition of exchanging colored Easter eggs.

The Flowering of the Cross

The flowering of the cross is also a time–honored English tradition, whereby a wooden cross, with many small notches in it, is filled with stems of flowers in a ceremonially way, usually by children, thus transforming a plain wooden cross into a Resurrection Symbol. Flowering of the cross shows the transformation from death to new life.

The Resurrection Garden

The Resurrection Garden is a relatively new custom, which is also beautiful in its symbolism. Many churches today are decorating their churches for Easter with a Resurrection Garden display. Some of the more attractive displays have a tomb in a cave hewn out of a large rock with several empty wooden crosses and many of the spring flowers. On Easter morning the stone is moved away from the tomb to show the empty cave.

Surprise Bunny Gift Hunt

At home our Easter baskets were filled with the most unusual things. Since most of us had a problem with sugar allergies, we instead found gifts that were left by the “Easter Bunny”. It was quite interesting that he would leave each child’s gifts in a separate room, and each child had filled plastic eggs in their own distinct color. The gifts were very much like the gifts that St. Nicholas left on his special day. The gifts got larger and more expensive as the children grew older. Even to this day the “Easter Bunny” still hides their gifts, but this time in two different states and four different homes!

Panorama Eggs

The year that we decided to make those - colored sugar, panorama eggs was quite interesting. It was a lot of fun to make the colored sugar eggs, however the piping with the really stiff icing was really difficult for some of us. Nevertheless, the outcome was another wonderful expression of the Easter egg and its rich symbolism; and the opportunity once again to display the signs of our Christian faith in the scene inside was momentous.

Popcorn Lambs

The popcorn “lambs” that we made for our Easter celebration was one of the most enjoyable because not only was it a great Easter decoration, but we could eat it too! We used the same “lamb” mold that we used to make the lamb cake for the Seder (Passover Meal) that we held each year, the week before Holy Week. The eyes of the lamb were either jellybeans cut in half or candy eyes from the cake decoration store. A nice new pastel ribbon made a nice bow tie. We colored coconut green for a little “grass” for the lamb to lie in. Some candy eggs or jellybeans added a little more color to the plate or basket that the lamb was arranged in. Christ’s Resurrection is again celebrated — “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” (See recipe for popcorn lambs in recipe section of this book)

The Easter Egg

For some Denominations or Communions, eggs were a very special symbol of Easter. Some Faiths did not eat eggs during Lent so it was a very special treat to have eggs on Easter Sunday. Christians see the egg as a sign of new life as the Resurrection of Jesus is new life.

Then there were the gorgeous Ukrainian eggs (Pysanky) that were made so well by some of the people in town! It made for a wonderful Sunday School program, when they would come and amaze us with their demonstration of the egg wax-dying.

In our Diocese a group of women named themselves the eggheads and began giving classes to other interested people in the area. The eggs were so beautiful that they began to sell them – giving the proceeds to charity.

Pysanky eggs are not eaten, but given as gifts to family and friends and used as decorations. Some eggs are prayed over while being made — prayers for the receiver of the gift egg.

Easter Party for the Youth

Since the children did not have school on Easter Monday, we found that to be a wonderful day to take the children to our outdoor Chapel that has a large field next to it, to have our annual Easter Party. The field was a great place for all of the wonderful games like egg toss, egg hunt, egg relay, and egg rolling.

Burning the Paschal Candle

The burning of the family Paschal candle is a good family reminder of the Fifty days, but also greetings can be important. For instance most of our greetings from day to day deal either with a person’s health “How are you?" or a desire for a good day, “Have a nice day.” The Christian world has always utilized seasonal greetings, not only in Church “Alleluia Christ is Risen” but also in the streets “He is Risen.” Unfortunately most of our cultures have dropped the Christian greeting, but wouldn’t it be good for Christian families to reinstitute it? For fifty days we begin and end our Liturgies with “Alleluias”. Perhaps families could greet each other with the Easter greeting: “Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen, indeed, Alleluia.”

The preceding material is reprinted here from To God be the Glory by Keith L. and Joann Ackerman by the Nashotah Chapter with the permission from DoveTracts, Inc. Distribution beyond this website or republication is strictly prohibited. A hard copy of the book may be obtained at The Parish Press. A digital version of the book is available by clicking here.

Published by:

DoveTracts, Inc.

Dovehaven2

1609 Scot Lane

Keller, Texas 76248

Chapter 6

Seasonal Customs and Traditions

In The Home and the Church

Excerpt – Lenten Activities for Holy Week and Easter

Rebecca Terhune