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Email a FriendPosted by Therese on Wednesday, Apr 4, 2012 9:55 PM (EDT):
We did this when I was growing up. Beautiful memories.
Best meal of the year
Thirty years of lamb on Holy Thursday
Posted by DariaSockey in FamilyFood on Monday, April 02, 2012 9:13 AM
It’s an object lesson for young families who are just starting to establish catholic holyday customs.
During the early years of our marriage, I read http://www.amazon.com/Year-Our-Children-Catholic-Celebrations/dp/1933184272 by Mary Reed Newland. She suggested a Holy Thursday meal made up of the foods that Jesus and his disciples would have eaten at the Last Supper: unleavened bread, roast lamb, bitter herbs,a fruit mixture called charoses, and kosher wine. So I tried it. It wasn’t meant to be a Seder by any stretch of the imagination, but as we ate this novel dinner, Bill and I reminded the little ones of both the Passover story from the book of Exodus, and its connections to what Jesus and the disciples were doing on Holy Thursday. Although some of the kids weren’t sure they liked the taste of lamb, they loved the homemade—and definitely not kosher, buttery unleavened bread. And that tiny glass of wine each one was allowed? A huge hit.
So by the following year, the kids were asking if we could do “Passover” again. By the third year, I had no choice. Despite the fact that at $3.49 a pound in 1985 and $6.49 this year, lamb has always been way beyond my usual maximum price per pound for meat. It’s a once a year splurge. One that I’d better not try to forego it in the name of economy.
Another thing about this runaway hit of a holyday custom: with mass at 7pm, plus altar boys or choir members who must arrive early, I have to be on top of my organization game to have this meal on the table no later than 4:45pm. When I temporarily had outside employment a few years back, this meant taking a half day off just to make this happen.
The moral of the story is: don’t start a holy day custom unless you are prepared to do it every single year for a long, long time.
That being said, I’m just as committed to roast lamb and bitter herbs on Holy Thursday as the rest of the family. It’s become one of those touchstones of our family identity. The boys in particular, speak lovingly of this dinner, which comes at the end of a lent where I provide meatless dinners almost daily. More than anything else, it has impressed on the kids that the feast of the institution of the Eucharist was one of the greatest days of the year.
Of course, there are other fine ways to mark the opening of the Holy Triduum. What are your customs?
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