Happy Easter!
It's gray here this morning. Nonetheless, it's a glorious gray. After all, it's Easter Sunday.
I hope you've turned your attention, depending on your religious sensibility, to these special days of Holy Week, Passover, and, now, Easter. While raised Catholic, I gained some appreciation for Passover from the many Jewish neighbors in our apartment building. We would exchange good wishes as well as some delicacies from our different traditions. My Mom always bought Matzo (or Matzah) at this time of year, something I decided to do this year as I thought of her. It's good with all kinds of stuff, but just butter and salt does the trick too. When I was growing up, somehow it seemed part of getting along with your neighbor and looking out for each other, something we managed rather well in those days.
But, of course, Easter was the centerpiece of our family celebrations. Yes, it was a great time to get together with family. The food was special - and wonderful. And my Mom made the traditional Italian pizza grana (aka pastiera). You hardly find anyone making that grand pie (as I thought of it, although it actually means grain pie), although I'm blessed with a wife who does (even though she's not of Italian ancestry - God bless her!).
With all that, though, the real reason we celebrated Easter was never lost. Between our family taking our faith seriously, and my good fortune in being schooled at a time when the Catholic religion was passed on to us as fully and faithfully as possible, I knew the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was the point of it all. And by the grace of God, I still know it. Here's how I recently expressed it elsewhere:
...we celebrate this day of our liberation from sin, when Our Lord, to be sure we get the point of what our salvation really means, actually died and rose from the dead, eventually to rise into Heaven. He did this to demonstrate what awaits us if we remain faithful to His commandments and love Him as He so clearly and completely loves us. We will be saved from our sins. And we will attain eternal happiness in Heaven. Eternal happiness! Alleluia! It's a glorious thought for a glorious season.
I hope you've turned your attention, depending on your religious sensibility, to these special days of Holy Week, Passover, and, now, Easter. While raised Catholic, I gained some appreciation for Passover from the many Jewish neighbors in our apartment building. We would exchange good wishes as well as some delicacies from our different traditions. My Mom always bought Matzo (or Matzah) at this time of year, something I decided to do this year as I thought of her. It's good with all kinds of stuff, but just butter and salt does the trick too. When I was growing up, somehow it seemed part of getting along with your neighbor and looking out for each other, something we managed rather well in those days.
But, of course, Easter was the centerpiece of our family celebrations. Yes, it was a great time to get together with family. The food was special - and wonderful. And my Mom made the traditional Italian pizza grana (aka pastiera). You hardly find anyone making that grand pie (as I thought of it, although it actually means grain pie), although I'm blessed with a wife who does (even though she's not of Italian ancestry - God bless her!).
With all that, though, the real reason we celebrated Easter was never lost. Between our family taking our faith seriously, and my good fortune in being schooled at a time when the Catholic religion was passed on to us as fully and faithfully as possible, I knew the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was the point of it all. And by the grace of God, I still know it. Here's how I recently expressed it elsewhere:
...we celebrate this day of our liberation from sin, when Our Lord, to be sure we get the point of what our salvation really means, actually died and rose from the dead, eventually to rise into Heaven. He did this to demonstrate what awaits us if we remain faithful to His commandments and love Him as He so clearly and completely loves us. We will be saved from our sins. And we will attain eternal happiness in Heaven. Eternal happiness! Alleluia! It's a glorious thought for a glorious season.
Happy Easter!
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