Easter traditions - blessing of eggs etc

[Kathrin]

Hi
I am not sure if this is the right forum for this. I am curious about this kind of tradition in different countires. I have spent Easter in Switzerland many time sof course because that is where I grew up, and in the US (San Francisco) quite a few times too.
This is my first Easter in Croatia.
Now people tell me that here at the Easter Vigil mass (in the small town where I am staying I think there will be one at 8pm and another one at 10 or 10.30pm) it is custom to take eggs and some kind of sweet bread (“sirnica”) to mass to have it blessed, and I think it is then eaten on sunday for breakfast. Some people take other things too, like salt or ham… I have already been offered by at least one family that they’ll take an extra egg for me I wonder if this is soemthing specific to Croatia or if other countries do something similar… I do not remember that we did it in the US, and also in Swotzerland… there I think those who wanted to just borught eggs for (what do you call that? Were you hit two eggs together? Hey is my English getting worse since I haven’t been in the US so long? ) after the Vigil mass.

Kathrin

 

[PatriceA]

Hi
I am not sure if this is the right forum for this. I am curious about this kind of tradition in different countires. I have spent Easter in Switzerland many time sof course because that is where I grew up, and in the US (San Francisco) quite a few times too.
This is my first Easter in Croatia.
Now people tell me that here at the Easter Vigil mass (in the small town where I am staying I think there will be one at 8pm and another one at 10 or 10.30pm) it is custom to take eggs and some kind of sweet bread (“sirnica”) to mass to have it blessed, and I think it is then eaten on sunday for breakfast. Some people take other things too, like salt or ham… I have already been offered by at least one family that they’ll take an extra egg for me I wonder if this is soemthing specific to Croatia or if other countries do something similar… I do not remember that we did it in the US, and also in Swotzerland… there I think those who wanted to just borught eggs for (what do you call that? Were you hit two eggs together? Hey is my English getting worse since I haven’t been in the US so long? ) after the Vigil mass.

Kathrin

I live in the US, having our Easter basket blessed on Holy Saturday morning has always been a tradition for my family. The basket is filled with ham, kielbasa, bacon, decorated eggs, butter (in the form of a lamb), salt, bread and various other items we will use for our meals on Easter.

 

[Loving_disciple]

I think it is a native tradition. At our Easter mass we renew our vows sometimes

 

[Softly]

It’s an eastern European tradition. Poles, Ukrainians, Slovaks, etc., have their own specific customs, but they all seem to be based on taking the rich foods you did not eat during Lent to be blessed in preparation to eating them on Easter. I think it’s a beautiful, communal tradition.

 

[Kathrin]

I just heard from somebody who grew up in Austria that the remembers having eggs blessed there too.

 

[Sunbreak]

As someone already said, this is a common Slavic custom. We used to bring baskets to be blessed on Holy Saturday with samples of the food that would be eaten for Easter: ham, kielbasa, horseradish, butter, bread, eggs. Another part of the tradition is that the blessed egg would be shared at the Easter breakfast the next day.

 

[CB_Catholic]

Well, I don’t belong to an ethnic parish anymore and my current parish and the one before that always had the custom of blessing baskets of food on Holy Saturday morning. It is quite common here.

 

[Aggies08]

The traditional Easter Basket Blessing? The Polish group here heads it up; it’s basically Easter Breakfast for us Many of our Eastern Europe/of that lineage participate! It’s fun. Oh, you are in Croatia! Yes, it’s going to be similar to this, then, most likely.

Here’s a simple webpage on some of the things you will see in the basket. Plus, candy, because the kids want to eat something after staring at all that food! I found sheep chocolates, so that’s our sheep this year, haha!

We bless our colored eggs, but I’d like a few pretty wooden ones in there, too- those are common, here.

polishamericancenter.org/SwieconkaBasket.htm

Let’s see, this year I didn’t get kielbasa, but just some sausage, Farmer’s cheese, chocolate lambs, salt/pepper from the house, our colored eggs from the house, butter from the house, a LOVELY roll of wheat/oat bread which is going to be wonderful toasted, and we use our cream tablecloth as the liner/cover for our food I don’t usually bother with candles, although we may go and pick some flowers to decorate with if we have time

We don’t eat horseradish, so I don’t buy it, and we don’t eat ham for breakfast (and the dinner one is the size of the basket!). Sausage is enough meat for us! I’m doing them on a stick, this year… hahaha. I stick to things we can eat for breakfast after Mass on Easter!

Go with them if you can, it’s fun!

Here, at least, there is always one poor soul who thinks this is for kid’s baskets (like, going to Egg Hun)… we don’t mind though!

 

[Kathrin]

The lady of the nice family who is renting to me while I am staying here (not a long stay this time, about 2 weeks) said that she will bring me an egg and a piece of the Sirnica that they have blessed .
I just had a wonderful talk with the whole fmaily, also about faith etc.
I happy to be here. I love it here. I would like ot live here .

(I must only see that my fears - scrupulosity - don’t get the better of me. I had already started worrying, what if I do something wrong, will it be a sin, etc… which of course can spoil the joy of such things!!!)

Aggies08, thank you for all the details and the link. Polish and Croatian words are sometimes similar, I again could see. (butter: maslo/maslac; eggs - jajka/jaja; cheese: ser/sir; Salt: sol (the same).