Easter is the highlight of the liturgical year, and so for Poles, it's the highlight of social year in many ways. As with Christmas, begin quietly at home, breaking the evening's fast (and the non-meat fast of the last several days) with treats from the baskets blessed yesterday.
Bread, ham, sausage, boiled eggs, a lamb-shaped cake, slivers of apple and orange, and a horseradish sauce. A simple meal, a somewhat humble meal.
It's not like the equivalent for the Christmas Eve dinner. That will all come later. But the Boy is simply not waiting for anything more elaborate.
"One more piece of ham," he chirps, sliding it to the side of his plate. "Save the best for last," which he doesn't -- he eats it in a few moments, then repeats.
He downs four or five slices of ham, a serving of veggie salad, a large proportion of the orange, a couple of sausage hunks, some bread -- he eats at least twice as much as L.
After breakfast, it's off to Mass with us. I take the Girl an hour earlier for choir practice and sit in the pews, watching the brightening sky slowly illuminate the church.
This is our first Easter in our new parish, and it's parish's first Easter in the new church.
All the colors seem to glow as a result. Or perhaps that's still the sheen of newness. Likely a bit of both.
Mass in this wonderful space feels like it should: an explosion for all the senses. The altar servers process in, the first swinging a thurible and filling the middle isle with incense that drifts upward, catching rays of light and glowing. The choir is sublime. We kneel, stand, sit, kneel, cross ourselves. The physical beauty of the place surrounds us. The sweet Communion wine lingers as we head back to our pew.
In front of me, a young lady has brought a friend -- boyfriend? -- and he's clearly not Catholic. I remember the first time I witnessed all of this. It was so different from everything I'd experienced growing up. "The smells and bells" forced out of me a begrudging respect as did the humble faith of the parishioners.
This young man keeps his hands in his pockets most of the time, rarely looks around, and seems bored. Perhaps he's not having the same experience I did twenty years ago when I first went to Mass. Perhaps he is and simply doesn't show it.
After Communion, the girl, still kneeling, eases back onto the pew, and her father, sitting to her left, places his hand on the small of her back and massages gently. The girl pulls herself back up into a full kneeling position. I smile at the universality of fathers: I've done that many a time with the Girl, but she's never with us in Mass these days. Instead, she's in the choir loft.
I think about the obvious: there will come a time when the Girl might want to bring a young man to Mass with us. She's already growing so fast that K and I can't keep up with her, but right now, she says boys are disgusting.
"They're always messing up things on the playground," she often complains. "They steal balls, bother us, chase us." How long will this last? Not long enough, I'm afraid.
I can still get into my wedding suit, but looking at the picture reveals the sad truth: a bit of a gut has formed that pushes the jacket into slight wrinkles. "I forgot to suck it in," I think to myself, remembering all the times my own father did something similar. Like father, like son.
In the afternoon, all the usual suspects come over. We eat; we drink; we eat; we laugh. After a while, a couple of us go out to hide Easter eggs for the kids. Some we hide in the open; some we actually hide.
In the end, a perfect day.
