Is it Catholic to have a dinner/feast on Easter Day?

[Zandy]

So is it true that all Catholics celebrate Easter after Mass with a dinner/lunch feast?
I’m asking cause I asked a friend what she is doing for Easter they said just staying home eating chocolate. I told her how my family has this traditional lunch feast. She never heard of it. I mentioned maybe it’s a catholic thing? They went to ask their mum because there step mother is a Irish catholic. But her mum didnt know.
So I asked my mother she says all Christians do it.
Then I thought but my partner family is Christian and his dad is Catholic but they don’t have the Easter Day Lunch traditional.
So I’m wondering is it a Catholic thing?
Or a Irish Catholic tradition cause my family did come from Ireland. Or it’s not?

 

[po18guy]

It is a true Christian celebration, the feast day of all feast days.

Very sorry to hear that so many who call themselves Christian do not honor the greatest event in human history: the Resurection.

 

[LilyM]

So is it true that all Catholics celebrate Easter after Mass with a dinner/lunch feast?
I’m asking cause I asked a friend what she is doing for Easter they said just staying home eating chocolate. I told her how my family has this traditional lunch feast. She never heard of it. I mentioned maybe it’s a catholic thing? They went to ask their mum because there step mother is a Irish catholic. But her mum didnt know.
So I asked my mother she says all Christians do it.
Then I thought but my partner family is Christian and his dad is Catholic but they don’t have the Easter Day Lunch traditional.
So I’m wondering is it a Catholic thing?
Or a Irish Catholic tradition cause my family did come from Ireland. Or it’s not?

The main thing, of.course, in ordinary circumstances would.be to celebrate by attending Mass. This year most of us willl be unanle.to physically attend but will doubtless spiritually observe the day in other ways.

Whether you chooae.to alao.have a festive lunch or dinner or not, or simply treat yourself with some chocolate, is far less important. As with Christmas, however, moat of us do usually mark Easter with a family meal.

This year of course many of us will not.be able.to gather with a large number of family and friends, So whatever we do.wil likely be low-key.

 

[Emeraldlady]

As a child in the 60’s I remember Easter lunch was similar to Christmas lunch. Easter day was more enjoyable because of the previous 40 days of fasting. When we were older, we got our Easter eggs after the vigil Mass and then were able to enjoy Easter lunch without being stuffed with chocolates.

 

[MockSock]

My housemates who are baptised but not practicing laughed at me for wanting to celebrate Easter. In the end one of them said “Christ is risen and all that jazz”. I think that’s the best I’m going to get, so we’re having lamb.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

Depending where you are from, it may be traditional to have a special lunch on every Sunday of the year anyway. It is certainly traditional for virtually all Christians to have a special meal on Easter Sunday. Lamb is commonly eaten. Different cultures have their own special observances. For example, in Poland, children take baskets of food to church to be blessed. This may well happen in other parts of central Europe, I’m not sure. The short answer is yes, a special Easter lunch is the norm for most Christians. Many people do also eat chocolate.

 

[Ardent_Fire]

I don’t remember us having our big Easter celebration at lunch, I think for us it was probably a late afternoon or early evening dinner, usually we’d have ham. Up until that point in the day, of course as kids we just munched on our Easter eggs and chocolate for most of that day. Though it goes without saying we always went to Mass either that morning or the Vigil before.

 

[Lea101]

We usually have our idea of a feast (pizza) at night, or some traditional Indian food. We don’t meet and have parties, it is within our immediate family.

I don’t know if it’s a cultural tradition. I assume it’s just something that seems like it’s common sense. It’s a big, important day so why not have a good meal?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Some people like to have Easter dinner. Some people like to enjoy their day off by sitting around eating chocolate and then ordering takeout. It’s not a Catholic thing to have a special Easter lunch or dinner, it’s a cultural thing, and also is based on personal preferences of the family.

There is no requirement or tradition that all Catholics must have a fancy Easter meal. We rarely had one growing up because there were only three of us in our family, we had maybe one person outside the family whom we could invite, and my mother would have been doing all the cooking and although she was a good cook she didn’t really like cooking that much. When I was growing up, we usually would have Easter baskets in the morning (when I was a kid my mother would hide it and I would have fun hunting for it), then we’d get dressed up and go to Easter Mass at 10 am or noon, then we spent the rest of the day relaxing and eating chocolate, and for dinner we might have some ham and cake that my mother had bought already prepared so at most you just needed to warm up the ham, if that.

My husband’s family was Protestant and they would have a large dinner because his parents liked to make a large dinner and they had extended family to invite over to help them eat it.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Very sorry to hear that so many who call themselves Christian do not honor the greatest event in human history: the Resurection.

If they go to church and sincerely worship, they are “honoring the greatest event in human history” just fine.

There is no requirement that you honor God by having a big celebratory meal after church. I’m certainly not going to be doing that since I’m the only person who will be here to eat it. I will be sitting on the couch in my t-shirt eating chocolate eggs and relaxing. I will probably also say a few prayers and thank God I’m still alive. I’m sure God will be just as happy with that as if I cooked a giant ham.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Depending where you are from, it may be traditional to have a special lunch on every Sunday of the year anyway.

Yeah, I have a friend who is from USA and married a British guy and moved there, and apparently “Sunday lunch” (they call it Sunday dinner) is a HUGE deal and she has spent many Sundays cooking it, and had heated discussions with other women there over what makes a proper Sunday lunch. To those of us back in USA, this sounds rather silly as who wants to spend their day off hassling around cooking some big lunch, especially when it’s just for two people (husband and wife) to eat rather than having 10 people over for some big family event. My mother’s idea of “Sunday lunch” was we went out to a pancake restaurant so she didn’t have to cook.

 

[Thrstypirate]

When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s we used to have a big family meal at my grandma’s every Sunday. Unfortunately, my family doesn’t even get together on Easter and Christmas. Luckily, my in-laws have an ALL DAY Easter get together. Mass, lunch, dinner. 12 hours or so. It’s my favorite day of the year, that and Christmas.

 

[OraLabora]

Then I thought but my partner family is Christian and his dad is Catholic

Minor quibble. Actually, major quibble. Catholics are Christians. We believe we have the fullness of Christianity, whereas other ecclesial communities, while also Christian, are missing some or another element of the deposit of faith Jesus left us through the Apostles and Scripture.

 

[MockSock]

I always thought that all Christians ate lamb on Easter as continuation of Jewish tradition. We would - under normal circumstances - attend the true Pascal Sacrifice and eat the true Passover Lamb, and then we go home and eat lamb.

Its interesting to read how other people celebrate Easter.

 

[tafan2]

Certainly the day should be treated as something special. For many families, that would include a special meal (it always has been for us). But there are other ways to celebrate. But celebrating is important, IMO.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I always thought that all Christians ate lamb on Easter as continuation of Jewish tradition. We would - under normal circumstances - attend the true Pascal Sacrifice and eat the true Passover Lamb, and then we go home and eat lamb.

No. Lamb isn’t that commonly eaten in USA; you often have to pre-order it from a specialty butcher if you want it (or at least if you want more than a couple of lamb chops), and many people don’t like it, either because of the taste or because they don’t like the idea of eating a cute lamb.

The more traditional Easter meat for a lot of people in USA is ham. Which has the added benefit of being good sandwich meat, so any leftovers get easily used up during the week.

 

[Jbrady]

I always thought that all Christians ate lamb on Easter

Depends on the country. In Poland, very few people would touch lamb any day of the year. It’s not a popular meat at all.

In the US, it’s also not that popular an item. Lots of people won’t touch it. Probably the majority have never even tried it. Ham is the meat we usually associate with Easter.

 

[Dorothy]

I am of Italian descent, and have a large extended family. I had seven aunts and uncles and lots of cousins. At every major holy day, after Mass we would have a celebration of altogether eating a shared feast in Grandma and Grandpa’s basement. It was a great long visit, as we would sit and chat in between courses. The main dishes were always a stuffed turkey, and lasagna, with several side dishes. Different ethnic groups feature different food.

When I attended high school I discovered that some people cooked a huge ham for their main course on Easter. I had never heard of that. I thought ham was a sliced cold cut that was purchased at deli’s occasionally to make a sandwich with!

 

[1ke]

So is it true that all Catholics celebrate Easter after Mass with a dinner/lunch feast?

Having lunch or dinner as a family or with extended family is a tradition in many places, just as it is for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day and many other occasions.

It is typical to celebrate on great feast days.

Do “all” Catholics do this? Well, probably not “all”. Because all families are different.

 

[1ke]

and many people don’t like it, either because of the taste

Lamb at Easter is a tradition in my Dad’s family. I think it tastes like boiled shoes. It was a source of many a great dinner table standoffs in my youth.