It’s a custom in many Eastern Orthodox churches to distribute pussy willow branches along with palms on Palm Sunday (which was yesterday). I am looking forward with great anticipation to the Feast of Feasts next Sunday, while also feeling the joy of those who celebrated yesterday.

This morning I got up and boiled eggs—the eggs that will be eaten, not eggs like those above, which are some of the ones I decorated in years past. I also made an eggy and creamy concoction called Pascha which is actually our name for the feastday itself—Easter. In Greek, the word Pascha means Passover. As a convert, I have adopted the food and folk customs of Russian Orthodoxy which I was only dimly aware of as a child growing up. One of my mother’s sisters still made these types of foods, but I only ate them a couple of times that I can remember. The Orthodox Easter was usually on a different day from the Easter in the Western world.

In any case, our Roman Catholic Easter was spent with my Italian relatives because my father’s mother, the matriarch, had a big celebration, and attendance was mandatory. One of the things she would cook was something we called “Easter stew” which was a lamb dish with scrambled eggs in it. It was delicious. The liquid in this stew was thin, but very tasty—perfect for dipping thick chunks of Itlalian bread.

Now most of my Italian family is gone and I see my cousins only rarely. A few years ago, I began to investigate my Slavic roots, and as a result I joined the Orthodox church. I also learned about some of the folk customs from the part of the world from which my mother’s family emigrated (now, it’s part of Ukraine; then, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). I taught myself to decorate the eggs that were made in that region, which is called Transcarpathia and never really was its own country. When we asked our mother what nationality we were, she told us that her mother had said we were “Russian hillbillies.” We have also been called, among other things, Carpathian Russian, Rusyn, Ruthenian, and sometimes “Little Russians.” A film called Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors shows what life was like in that part of the world in the 19th century. People prayed before every task, sang as they worked in the fields, and were extremely superstitious. Life was hard.

It’s close to 1 am and I am still up, after coming home from a very long service, the Matins of Holy Saturday, which we do on the evening of Great and Holy Friday. Like all Orthodox services, the whole thing is sung and chanted. It’s quite powerful. Everything comes together again as we learn about creation, man’s fall, and God’s plan for the salvation of the world. We hear prophetic readings accompanied by special songs. Here is one of my favorites:

Moses the great mystically prefigured this present day, saying: “And God blessed the seventh day.” For this is the blessed Sabbath, this is the day of rest, on which the only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works. Suffering death in accordance with the plan of salvation, He kept the Sabbath in the flesh; and returning once again to what He was, through His Resurrection He has granted us eternal life, for He alone is good and loves mankind.

After this, I truly feel the power of Christian salvation, the beauty that we were created to experience. Tomorrow night we will close that special book, The Lenten Triodion, for another year.