Becoming Easter People
- josie
- Apr 12
- 8 min read
Dear Incarnation parents:
It’s the final countdown! You may be kind of limping into Holy Week (like me, whose Lenten dog training has stalled, to put it kindly). Of course, we are not the ones with the power to save. I love this translated bit from St. John Chrysostom’s Paschal Homily:
“the Lord gives generously. The Lord accepts the offering of every work. The Lord honors every deed and commends every intention... You who have kept the fast, and you who have not, rejoice this day, for the Table is richly spread! Feast royally upon it, for He has prepared the fatted calf. Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all of you, of the banquet of faith. Come and enjoy the bounty of the Lord’s goodness!”
We are invited, whether we began work at the first hour or the eleventh hour. Below you’ll find some details for the coming week, as well as some ideas for household observances and celebrations.
This is not meant to be overwhelming! My most essential recommendations:
Live the week, quietly if possible;
read the Last Supper account together;
and celebrate on Easter!
More details:
Palm Sunday
Tomorrow, Holy Week begins with a palm procession and shouts of Hosanna ("Save us!”) outside Drew Elementary.
Children in the True Vine Atrium (including those in Sacramental Formation) should arrive at 9:30 and go as usual to the far sanctuary windows or the courtyard, respectively. They'll join in the procession after their sessions. Children in the Good Shepherd Atrium will begin outside with their families for the palm procession, and walk into atrium at the beginning of the service with everyone else. (I.e. the Good Shepherd Atrium won’t open until 10am). Children are invited to help distribute palms and to lead the Palm Sunday procession!
Holy Week
Please look at what else is going on for our church community this week, and decide with peace which Holy Week offerings will work for various family members. The sensory nature of these moments—foot (or hand) washing, darkness, simple lentils for dinner (closely followed by colorful light and feasting on Sunday!)—conveys a great deal about the Easter story to both children and adults.
Children who have participated in Sacramental Formation and their parents are invited to take advantage of the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Friday afternoon or by appointment. Here’s a guide for ourselves and our kids (this goes along with the sheets on the welcome table).
The Easter Vigil will be held Saturday evening at Beverley Hills. It's a beautiful service that tells the whole story of salvation; it’s glorious once children are old enough to attend! We’d love to have children participate as readers, so please email Katie ASAP if interested.
Here’s a day-by-day guide to Holy Week from Ashley Tumlin Wallace with details on the significance of each day.
Easter Sunday
Everyone is invited to brunch on the grounds of Beverley Hills at 10am, preceding church at 11:30am. We’ll feast and the children will arrange flowers for our Easter processional that starts the service, creating a Resurrection Garden around the altar table. Arrive early if possible with flowers from your yard (or from a friendly neighbor's garden, or the friendly bodega, or Trader Joe’s).
We won’t have atrium or any children’s programming on Easter Sunday, but will provide some festive materials in the children’s worship bags.
[That’s it for the logistics . . . stuff for the creative juices below!]
Becoming Easter People
This is our greatest feast at church; so you’re invited into the joy of making things beautiful to reflect the greatness of the feast!
Earlier this year, Izzy and I were fortunate enough to tour Xochimilco, an ancient canal system outside of Mexico City, with man-made islands called chinampas that continue to be farmed the way they were a thousand years ago. These floating gardens were built up using the rich silty mud from the lakebed, and are held in place by the roots of trees planted around the perimeter of each island to prevent erosion. Crops planted on these small island farms by seed or sapling don’t need to be watered or fertilized, as the roots soak up everything that’s needed; and harvests come quickly and repeatedly throughout the year.
I found it fascinating and beautiful, and I kept thinking of our analogy of us tending the soil, but God bringing the growth. Crops can’t help but grow and thrive on a chinampa, and we’d love to create a similar culture for our children to thrive. Notice the connection between the words cultivate and culture. In school we learn about a “culture” as the set of practices—language, food, celebrations, customs, beliefs, clothing, etc. etc.—that make a people. Culture is the soil and conditions where we live and grow.
Plants thrive on a chinampa . . . but that’s because someone else way-back-when did the backbreaking work of dredging up the mud to build the island! So: how’s your family or household culture? Some of us might be grateful for a robust family and faith culture that we’ve inherited; some of us would like to keep certain things, and ditch others (maybe pulling the weeds??); some may need to return to an abandoned island and clean it up a bit; some of us might feel like we’re neck deep in Lake Texcoco looking for the mud!
None of us is actually starting from scratch, though. God Himself spreads the Paschal Feast, and the Church leads us through to life-giving celebration.
The effort, whether it's more or less, will be worth it to mine our beloved Easter traditions from childhood, family heritage, and church tradition (not to mention our current family’s delightful creativity) to find the special foods, songs, and customs that will build this celebration. We are Easter people!
Easter is the Sunday of all Sundays, the moment of greatest Reality and Mystery that all the other Sundays throughout the year point to and derive from.
The point is to make the usual things we do special: eating, cleaning, getting dressed, going to church. Kind of like Christmas: is there a special food we only have on Easter morning? Recall your own childhood memories and think through the five senses to get the ideas churning—the smell of breakfast sausage! The feeling of grass between your toes! Sounds, smells, sights, tastes, tactile touch!
Here are some ideas to consider:
Silence and Simplicity
As much as it's possible, clear some time and space for your family this week to prepare for Easter. Each household’s commemoration and celebration will differ, since some are on spring break, some have Friday off work, some are staying in temporary housing at the moment!
We’ve been practicing silence at church throughout Lent, and we could also turn off our regular soundtracks in the car and/or at home—music, podcasts, tv shows in the background—to give ourselves more quiet space.
If the full week is too much, you could create this silence after Maundy Thursday. In Catholic European cities, the church bells still don’t ring on Friday and Saturday, creating an eery and uneasy feeling until Easter can finally be celebrated! (There are stories of the town boys going around as “clackers” banging pieces of wood together every hour on the hour in the bells’ absence—I could see some of our children getting into that!)
Parents might make an intentional effort to stay off our phones, perhaps placing them in a designated basket.
Pack muffled bells to bring to church for the Easter Vigil and/or on Easter morning, and let your kids be joyful and raucous at that moment in the service!
Cooking and Baking
Plan the grocery list together and do whatever's possible to prep ahead of Easter on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Explore your family's ethnic heritage or call an older relative to get ideas for traditional Easter foods.
Some families might like to have a meal with lamb or other traditional seder foods during the week, making a simple connection between the Passover deliverance from slavery, and Jesus who became our paschal sacrifice.
Make Lentil soup, pretzels, or Hot Cross Buns. Traditionally, Good Friday is a day of fasting or abstaining from certain foods. Again, growing children don’t need to fast, but you might select a simple, meatless meal for dinner.
If you’ve given up something or enjoyed baking Lenten foods, be sure to bake something especially tasty and celebratory for Easter!
Spring Cleaning
Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week are traditional spring cleaning days to prepare for the Easter feast. Children enjoy helping with this: polishing a table, beating dust out of pillows, looking for the table cloth you'd like to use on Sunday to make sure it's ready.
Similarly, it's a nice time to donate clothes or toys you no longer use.
Back when people bathed less often than we do (!) having a nice cleansing bath was part of Easter prep. Our equivalent might be getting haircuts or whatever’s needed. (Our dog will go to the groomer this week!)
Plan your Easter clothes. This tradition connects to putting on new life in Christ, a fresh wedding garment, the white garment of baptism!
Decoration
Decorate eggs, and make other desired Easter decorations (ribbons! banners!). One year we all made tissue paper flowers to decorate the Easter fence! Our family likes to make cascarones (Mexican confetti eggs) to break on Papa's head while shouting Alleluia (you’re welcome to steal that idea).
Gardening: get in the dirt, clear out a garden bed, notice what's already growing around you. Cut some flowers and deliver them to a neighbor, or plan to do it for an Easter surprise. Decide together what flowers you’ll bring to church on Easter morning.
Children might enjoy helping set your family dinner table, or prayer table or similar prayer space throughout the week. Place your Palm Sunday palms in a vase, or hang them on the front door or over the mantel. Strip the table clear on Thursday, and make some other spare arrangement, perhaps stones or a cross made of twigs, on Friday. One year we had stones as our centerpiece and my kids loved throwing them out the back door either on Saturday night or Sunday morning . . . the stone was rolled away, haha! Of course, place beautiful flowers on the table for Sunday morning!
Prayer card idea: Hosanna on one side (meaning something like "Please save us"); Alleluia on the other ("Praise the LORD"). Ready to be flipped over on Easter morning!
Easter Fire
If you're missing the Easter Vigil: in the past the Rowes have held a DIY family vigil around the backyard fire pit. You could build a fire, or just light a candle after sundown, and read part of the vigil liturgy (BCP p. 582) The Exsultet is a beautiful way to mark the transition from waiting to celebrating.
For those traveling (before or after Easter on Spring Break), throw the Book of Common Prayer into your suitcase, and make praying a collect or reading from it part of the dinner or breakfast ritual on your trip. Or maybe there's a beach bonfire in your future?
I’ve also read about families not using heat or electricity after Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. They bring a lantern or some other way to take home fire from the Easter Vigil fire to relight the pilot light! (My family won’t be doing this . . . but I think it would be awesome and I want you to tell me about it!)
Whatever of the above you’d like to do, we know that some children will probably consider it a tradition after doing it only one time!
This is great, because even if we don’t feel Easter-y like we wanted to or expected—however we’re feeling—Easter is still True and these practices reflect the greatness of the feast. We’ll come back around next year, plus we have the whole season of Eastertide (longer than Lent) to enjoy. And year by year, the celebration will continue to form us. Like the little succulents I saw on a floating island in Mexico, we won’t be able to help but grow!
love—
Josie
!!!!!!!!!!
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