I'm not sure if any other family does this, but during the Easter Octave we have our leftover Easter pie for breakfast as many days as it lasts. Because Easter is the biggest day for baptisms we look at it as a cousin to the Eastern European tradition to taking a frigid polar bear swim in January for the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. Then we opt for a warm bubble bath as our commemoration instead of bump our festivities for a day. At times Dyngus Day, the shortened the Polish-Americans name, involved an early morning wake up call with a bucket of water, but we keep all our festivities outside unless it is cold that day. Because what little boys don’t love water balloons, a slip n slide, or a water gun war? And my medievalist heart had to oblige. Though our family is unfortunately not Polish, as soon an my boys found out about this custom years ago they adopted it as our Easter Monday tradition, along with pie breakfast. It became a country-wide day for water games and trying to drench your neighbor. And possibly baptizing an originally pagan tradition. Some historians think it began in relation to the unification of Poland as a Christian nation in the 10th century when the the Mieszko I, the Duke of Polans, was baptized. In Poland there is a medieval tradition going back to at least the 13th century called Smigus Dyngus, Wet Monday in Polish. This means that all 8 days of the octave are solemnities instead of just feasts or memorials. Additionally, Easter's octave is the last specially privileged octave on the new calendar. Many feast days used to have them, but only Christmas and Easter do now. If you've never heard the liturgical term "Octave," it is just a lengthening of a feast's celebration through 8 days total. So if you've been scratching your head as to how your family will keep this 50 day party of a season going, I'm here for you, sister! We'll look at our family traditions for the days within the Octave then those devotions that can carry us through the remainder of the season. But, I also promised to share some more ideas to keep the solemnity of Paschaltide day to day. And these can all be done throughout the Octave and the whole liturgical season as well. In my last post on celebrating Easter Day at Home I mentioned our traditions of decorating feasting festive music using bells, Alleluias, the Paschal Greeting as much as possible and related prayerful devotions. Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!Īs a liturgical living enthusiast since college (there are no experts), I feel like part of my vocation is to help my family and yours remember that Easter is more important than any other feast and to find little ways for us to live out what the Catechism calls the "Solemnity of Solemnities," not only through the Octave but the entire 50 day season.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |