"Easter is about relief. Forty days of fasting and temptation in the Lenten season. Three days of mourning the death of our savior and waiting for his acclaimed resurrection. You see, Easter wasn’t just a day, it had its own season in the Catholic calendar." --Chiara Kovac, 7th grade
Easter is about relief. Forty days of fasting and temptation in the Lenten season. Three days of mourning the death of our savior and waiting for his acclaimed resurrection. You see, Easter wasn’t just a day, it had its own season in the Catholic calendar.
In that season, Jesus spent forty days in a desert and didn’t eat and was tempted by the devil. And now all the Christians have to fast as during Lent. Or at least give up something special that you enjoy like chocolate or wine or those nice croutons in caesar salad (the kind that haven’t been drenched in salad dressing). The idea is that we face temptation too, and are reminded of the pain of Jesus. Before the season starts we have Fat Tuesday (heh) where we can eat fancy croutons before we have to say goodbye to them and Ash Wednesday where we go to church and get a small cross of ashes on our forehead. The ashes are from Palm Sunday at the end of Lent.
Palm Sunday re-tells a Bible story of when Jesus marched into Jerusalem on a donkey and the same people who would turn on him welcomed him and laid down palms so his donkey didn’t get its feet dirty. We recreate a procession like that and parade around the outside of the church waving palm leaves. Then there was Holy Thursday. We would all go to church and wash the feet of strangers to show our love towards them. The story behind this tradition is when Jesus’s disciples (religious followers) wanted to wash his feet to show their loyalty and how they saw him as a king, and wanted to serve him Jesus washed their feet instead to show how humble he was. Then Peter (a disciple) was like, “Hey man, you might as well wash my hands and face and legs and arms, too!” and Jesus said, “Um, no. I’m not that humble.” True story. For the most part. And then there was good Friday,
The thing about Easter was that it wasn’t that… fun. There wasn’t exciting waiting for our savior to be born like Christmas, it was more scared waiting for our savior to die? I didn’t understand why we had to have all this preparation. That was my perspective on Easter when I was younger.
I have been going to Church every Sunday for as long as I remember. Even on vacations. I now acolyte (or altar-serve) and consider my family involved in the church community. And so every Sunday after 9:30 Sunday School, we would all head to Saint Augustine Catholic Church to pray. And there is nothing wrong with that. But when the coronavirus pandemic started to cast shadows over more and more aspects of daily life, I looked at things differently. Dozens of people in the parish community and about 59% percent of them look sixty years old or older. We all held hands for Our Father (a prayer), and greeted each other before mass, usually with a handshake. When we went to receive communion (a communion wafer is a religious sort of cracker that is blessed and is believed to be the body of Christ) the priest would hand everyone a wafer when it was their turn in line. There was a lot of hugging and possible germ-spreading. We would have a buffet table after the service and have food. This is a hazard in the time of the coronavirus. I remember my mom begging my grandparents to not attend church and they were reluctant but decided on wearing gloves. That was more than a month ago, and it would only get worse.
The shelter in place order was issued and suddenly I was at home. Just at home. Not doing anything. I was used to leaving the house at 8:00 A.M. and returning home at 8:00 P.M. This was a new world. And like they say, out of sight out of mind. I forgot about Easter. Our Lent donation box is empty. The weeks were short and passed easily, but the days would never end. I was so disappointed that Easter was just canceled? It would still happen, but all the celebration and gloss would be gone. Easter to me was waking up and getting gift baskets and new church clothes. It was about going to church and hearing trumpets and instruments. It was about seeing new people who had come to celebrate our savior. It was about waiting too long for the little kids to finish their head start in the easter egg hunt. It was about having 40 days of waiting for this special day. But when I woke up on Easter morning, I knew it wasn’t going to be the same.
It was an ordinary day, just like any other but with some easter festivities. We called grandparents and had egg hunts. We ate peeps. I missed the old traditions, and it didn’t feel like Easter. But Easter is about taunting and temptation in the days of Lent and the relief of knowing and believing in life after death, the opening of heaven. I had to forget trumpets and croutons. Because the very first Easter was the end to a scary time, where belief triumphed over death and Jesus rose to heaven. But there was no celebration. Just more fear. The disciples feared they would be condemned to death as well. The people feared the death of their savior and wonderland still in disbelief. Judas regretted betraying Jesus. Perhaps Pontius Pilate (the Roman official who ordered Jesus to be put to death) even considered the fact that he made a mistake. This pandemic continues on and no one knows how it will end.
We are still in a time where the end is not clear. The very first Lent no one knew what was coming. Neither do we. There is panic. There is fear. There is scarcity of resources. There is no clear end and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. Just like the disciples after Jesus’s death and resurrection, we are in our homes, scared for the future.
But there is one thing that keeps us going. It is alive everywhere, always guiding no matter what you believe in. Hope. Hope is when you are hanging on to the last strand and know you have to pull yourself up. Hope is when nothing is left and everything is gone and you stand knowing the future will be worse but you can not stop here. So gather your hope and pack your courage because this global pandemic is going to be one wild ride.
In that season, Jesus spent forty days in a desert and didn’t eat and was tempted by the devil. And now all the Christians have to fast as during Lent. Or at least give up something special that you enjoy like chocolate or wine or those nice croutons in caesar salad (the kind that haven’t been drenched in salad dressing). The idea is that we face temptation too, and are reminded of the pain of Jesus. Before the season starts we have Fat Tuesday (heh) where we can eat fancy croutons before we have to say goodbye to them and Ash Wednesday where we go to church and get a small cross of ashes on our forehead. The ashes are from Palm Sunday at the end of Lent.
Palm Sunday re-tells a Bible story of when Jesus marched into Jerusalem on a donkey and the same people who would turn on him welcomed him and laid down palms so his donkey didn’t get its feet dirty. We recreate a procession like that and parade around the outside of the church waving palm leaves. Then there was Holy Thursday. We would all go to church and wash the feet of strangers to show our love towards them. The story behind this tradition is when Jesus’s disciples (religious followers) wanted to wash his feet to show their loyalty and how they saw him as a king, and wanted to serve him Jesus washed their feet instead to show how humble he was. Then Peter (a disciple) was like, “Hey man, you might as well wash my hands and face and legs and arms, too!” and Jesus said, “Um, no. I’m not that humble.” True story. For the most part. And then there was good Friday,
The thing about Easter was that it wasn’t that… fun. There wasn’t exciting waiting for our savior to be born like Christmas, it was more scared waiting for our savior to die? I didn’t understand why we had to have all this preparation. That was my perspective on Easter when I was younger.
I have been going to Church every Sunday for as long as I remember. Even on vacations. I now acolyte (or altar-serve) and consider my family involved in the church community. And so every Sunday after 9:30 Sunday School, we would all head to Saint Augustine Catholic Church to pray. And there is nothing wrong with that. But when the coronavirus pandemic started to cast shadows over more and more aspects of daily life, I looked at things differently. Dozens of people in the parish community and about 59% percent of them look sixty years old or older. We all held hands for Our Father (a prayer), and greeted each other before mass, usually with a handshake. When we went to receive communion (a communion wafer is a religious sort of cracker that is blessed and is believed to be the body of Christ) the priest would hand everyone a wafer when it was their turn in line. There was a lot of hugging and possible germ-spreading. We would have a buffet table after the service and have food. This is a hazard in the time of the coronavirus. I remember my mom begging my grandparents to not attend church and they were reluctant but decided on wearing gloves. That was more than a month ago, and it would only get worse.
The shelter in place order was issued and suddenly I was at home. Just at home. Not doing anything. I was used to leaving the house at 8:00 A.M. and returning home at 8:00 P.M. This was a new world. And like they say, out of sight out of mind. I forgot about Easter. Our Lent donation box is empty. The weeks were short and passed easily, but the days would never end. I was so disappointed that Easter was just canceled? It would still happen, but all the celebration and gloss would be gone. Easter to me was waking up and getting gift baskets and new church clothes. It was about going to church and hearing trumpets and instruments. It was about seeing new people who had come to celebrate our savior. It was about waiting too long for the little kids to finish their head start in the easter egg hunt. It was about having 40 days of waiting for this special day. But when I woke up on Easter morning, I knew it wasn’t going to be the same.
It was an ordinary day, just like any other but with some easter festivities. We called grandparents and had egg hunts. We ate peeps. I missed the old traditions, and it didn’t feel like Easter. But Easter is about taunting and temptation in the days of Lent and the relief of knowing and believing in life after death, the opening of heaven. I had to forget trumpets and croutons. Because the very first Easter was the end to a scary time, where belief triumphed over death and Jesus rose to heaven. But there was no celebration. Just more fear. The disciples feared they would be condemned to death as well. The people feared the death of their savior and wonderland still in disbelief. Judas regretted betraying Jesus. Perhaps Pontius Pilate (the Roman official who ordered Jesus to be put to death) even considered the fact that he made a mistake. This pandemic continues on and no one knows how it will end.
We are still in a time where the end is not clear. The very first Lent no one knew what was coming. Neither do we. There is panic. There is fear. There is scarcity of resources. There is no clear end and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. Just like the disciples after Jesus’s death and resurrection, we are in our homes, scared for the future.
But there is one thing that keeps us going. It is alive everywhere, always guiding no matter what you believe in. Hope. Hope is when you are hanging on to the last strand and know you have to pull yourself up. Hope is when nothing is left and everything is gone and you stand knowing the future will be worse but you can not stop here. So gather your hope and pack your courage because this global pandemic is going to be one wild ride.
