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Friday, March 29, 2024

Triduum in the domestic church, day by day

Dying eggs is a Holy Saturday tradition for many Catholic families. Scukrov | iStock

Above all, keep whatever you do simple, several moms advised.

Going overboard with new activities and stirring up stress defeats the purpose. There’s a wealth of ideas and activities available online for kids and adults, from LEGO-based Passion videos, to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s rebroadcast streaming of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “ St. John Passion” April 10 and 11.

With in-person Masses canceled around the world, watch Triduum liturgies online and look for other unique possibilities via the web. For example, on Holy Saturday, April 11, the Archdiocese of Turin, Italy, will host a special online exposition of the Shroud of Turin, which many believe is the burial cloth of Jesus. And follow your parish on social media: Many pastors are offering short video reflections for their flock.

HOLY THURSDAY

Several families interviewed by The Catholic Sprit about their Triduum traditions noted that they wash each other’s feet, and, like Kendra Tierney’s family, have a Seder-inspired meal. Holy Week is typically an unusually busy week for Megan Hume, assistant coordinator of liturgical celebrations at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. However, she likes to create a Seder plate with a hard-boiled egg, bitter herbs and unleavened bread, and she uses it to connect the Exodus story to the Last Supper for her three children, ages 5, 7 and 9. She talks about Passover and Jesus being the New Covenant, fulfilling the promises God made to the Israelites.

“I would love to take a deep dive in theology with my kids, but it’s not really accessible for them,” said Hume, 32, who earned a theology degree from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. “So the things we try to do are really simple, but we try to do things that are interesting and sensory.”

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Dana DeBoer, a parishioner of St. Paul in Ham Lake, said that her parish’s family formation program has inspired her to incorporate more Catholic traditions in the home. On Holy Thursday, the 43-year-old sets her dinner table with the family’s nicer dishes and she uses candles some of her five children — ages 4 to 15 — received for their first Communion. Her oldest daughter bakes unleavened bread in the shape of a large host with a cross in it, and everyone has a glass of wine or grape juice. They might also try to recreate the tradition of the Seven Church Visitation virtually, by “visiting” seven churches online, DeBoer said.

GOOD FRIDAY

Last year, DeBoer and her children spent their Good Friday participating in a procession at St. Stephen in Minneapolis, praying outside of Planned Parenthood in St. Paul and serving food at the Ronald McDonald House at Children’s Hospital. She noted that this year’s Good Friday will look much different. Like Tierney, the family sets some part of the day aside for quiet reading, with Play-Doh time or Bible story videos for younger children.

The DeBoers also plan to have a “Passion lunch,” with items that symbolize aspects of Jesus’ passion, such as an olive for the Mount of Olives, a Hershey’s Kiss for Judas’ betrayal and a pretzel for the crown of thorns. They plan to do the Stations of the Cross at home, symbolizing each station with household items like nails, a cloth (for Veronica’s veil) and Band-Aids (for Jesus’ falls).

The Divine Mercy novena also begins on Good Friday, nine days before Divine Mercy Sunday, April 19 this year.

HOLY SATURDAY

In a Facebook post on observing Holy Week, Laura Kelly Fanucci, a Catholic writer and parishioner of St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove, suggested filling Holy Saturday with stories. “Easter Vigil is packed with Scripture, so fill the day with favorite stories you would have heard at church. Take turns reading with your spouse, your kids, or a friend over the phone,” she posted April 5. “To counter today’s news full of fear, fill your head with words of love and hope.”

In the first evening “conference” of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ virtual Holy Week retreat April 5, Archbishop Bernard Hebda suggested families light a candle to remind them of the fire used at the beginning of the Easter Vigil to light the paschal candle, and to ring bells together to recollect the “Gloria” of that liturgy.

DeBoer plans to adapt a children’s liturgy from the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd that reminds her of the Easter Vigil, and have an Easter bonfire for lighting a homemade “Easter candle,” decorated with the same symbols as the large candles used in parishes. And when the kids go to bed, she’ll change the house’s decorations for Easter.

EASTER SUNDAY

Have a hand-me-down lamb-shaped cake pan? Pull it out (if you haven’t already). Lamb cakes have long been an Easter staple in some families, including the Hadzimas, parishioners of Holy Trinity in South St. Paul. It was a tradition Brigid Hadzima had growing up, and now she includes it with her Easter celebration, too. (The Tierneys’ Holy Thursday no-bake Rice Krispies treat lamb could be used on Easter Sunday, too.)

“It just symbolizes Jesus, the Lamb of God, the unblemished sacrifice, drawing from the Passover … and then fulfilling it in the New Covenant at the cross,” Hadzima said.

Even though Hadzima uses liturgical living to teach her children, ages 1 to 11, “I still love these things and I’m 34 years old,” she said. “It’s still a grounding for me. It’s a link to the past. It’s a link to my mom, to my grandma. And ultimately, it’s a link to our faith. It’s something I can see, touch, hear, and reminds me of what we’re about, where our heavenly home is, where our home is ultimately.”

The point of these special activities is to elevate Easter over other days, including other Sundays. And that goes for people who are living the Triduum and Easter Sunday alone, too, said Karen Perez, a parishioner of St. Agnes in St. Paul, who started celebrating the Church’s feast days with her husband, Juan, years before they had their three children. Now that they do have children — ages 6, 2 and 7 months — they do it to ingrain a Catholic culture in their children, said Perez, 35.

“We live in a culture that is so not centered on God, that by having our life just revolve around our faith, and our faith being such a central part of everything we do, it just helps our faith be a part of them,” she said.

DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

In 2000, St. John Paul II established Divine Mercy Sunday on the Sunday following Easter, with the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska, whose visions in the 1930s inspired widespread devotion to Christ and his Divine Mercy (including the image of Divine Mercy, which was based on a vision St. Faustina had of Jesus in 1931). Since parishes likely will not host Divine Mercy prayers and devotions due to continued social distancing, look for livestreamed Divine Mercy Chaplets to be prayed around 3 p.m. For more information, visit 3oclockhour.org.

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