Monday Morning Musings

Posted on April 22, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Artistry in the window of The Plum Tree

Another Easter season has come and gone.

I checked earlier this morning and there were long lineups at every chocolate addiction centre in the province. Liquor stores are breathing a sigh of relief and bakeries are re-opening after 40 days and forty nights of denial. People have returned to Facebook. Yes indeed, Lent and Easter are in the rear view mirror for another year.

I’m not sure how young families celebrate Easter these days. I imagine that Easter egg hunts are still popular but I wouldn’t have a clue what the Easter bunny is leaving behind in the way of gifts.

Our mother kept the makers of hula hoops, jacks, red, white and blue sponge rubber balls and kites in business for decades. Oh yes, and those bat-a-ball gizmos.

When I think about Easter as a child, the overwhelming sense I get is that everything revolved around church which is not surprising when you grew up in “The Little Vatican.” When you were an altar server back in the 60’s, you may as well have camped out in the sanctuary of the church. From Palm Sunday to the mass of chrism, followed by the sacred triduum (the period from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday), an altar boy saw a lot of Tigh Dei. One of the highlights was getting to wear a red surplice over your white soutane.

In the days of large families and unshakeable faith, getting a seat at any of these services required careful planning as empty seats were non -existent. Most Easter Saturdays meant a trip to midnight mass. Before attending, ten pairs of shoes would be lined up on a piece of newspaper, waxed and polished until they shone like the sun.

In later years, I witnessed all of these events from the comfort of “the perch”, the choir loft at St. Ninian’s. The choir has been a mainstay at the Cathedral for over a century. A family member who was in the choir before me mentioned that quite often, members of the tenor and bass sections (men) would disappear during parts of midnight mass. No, they weren’t checking to see if the Easter Bunny had arrived but rather to celebrate the end of Lent with a small drink of rum… to keep their vocal chords in good working order.

Has there ever been a Good Friday that wasn’t steely gray, cold and wet?

Of course, food is always a big part of major celebrations and we couldn’t wait for Easter Sunday to have one of our mother’s famous pineapple squares. I noticed a FB post a few days ago where a friend confessed that she had eaten half of a lemon meringue pie in one sitting at the conclusion of Lent. I thought she showed amazing restraint.

I almost forgot about confession. Atonement is a key feature of Easter week. In case you missed it, here’s my recollection of going to confession. (https://www.week45.com/i-confess-2/)