Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and maybe it was Passover too; I’m not sure anymore. Time was when I spent not only Easter Sunday but also much of the previous week in church. But that time is as long gone as Latin is in the Catholic mass. There was another time when I celebrated Passover, as well as the Christian holydays, but that too is relegated to my religious past. So how do I celebrate now? Or maybe more importantly, do I celebrate at all?

I do.

I currently don’t attend church on a regular basis, but holidays/holydays such as Christmas or Easter still hold great sway in my memory. I didn’t attend Catholic schools for sixteen years without having many of the liturgical prayers I learned in my youth still waiting patiently in the back of my mind. And should I decide to participate in Easter services some time in the future, the words of that youth would come back to me automatically. Like riding the proverbial bicycle.

When I was little, my Mother, a devout Catholic, made sure the first thing we did on Easter Sunday was to attend Mass. She always had a new outfit for each of us to wear, down to a Spring hat and white gloves. She always had an Easter basket that she’d fashioned herself with colored eggs, marshmallow chicks, and jellybeans, not unlike the fancier fare of today. But I could not have any of the candy until our religious obligation was met. Sometimes we’d splurge for brunch at the Chase-Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, where we lived; and I can still smell that restaurant’s French toast if I close my eyes.

In mid-life, I married a man of the Jewish faith and spent those years celebrating his holydays. Hanukah frequently coincided with Christmas; and Passover did the same at Easter time. I found the traditions that family honored complimented Catholicism rather than competed with it; and I am grateful for that broadening of my religious experience. Easter Sunday brings those celebrations to mind too.

These days our Easters are less religion-based and more family-based. Usually Earl’s side of the family comes together for brunch and baskets, just as my Mother and I did. We pause in the rush that is ever-accelerating in today’s life. And maybe the others, like me, silently remember past Easters while enjoying the present one.