Monday, April 13, 2009

The Lent season and Easter.

Hi friends,

Wish to brief a bit about the Lent days and the Easter we celebrated.
The Lenten season started with Ash Wednesday . Many people choose to remain vegetarians throughout the season. Actually I planned for a more silent Lent season with meditation and prayer. I had a theme called Sufferings of Jesus. Surprisingly I was able to concentrate more on the 'Stations of Cross' (the Fourteen stages from which Jesus was accused , suffered and crucified) on those days.
This 'Stations of cross' prayer has a lot of meaning , recommended for people who wish to view the worldly things with a good perspective.

The holy week started with the Palm Sunday (on 04-05-2009).
We got some palm leaves as a symbol of greeting and welcoming Jesus. It is a custom to make crosses out of them to keep inside the house for an year.
The next year we have to return them to the Church, where the dried leaves are burnt to make ashes to distribute on Ash Wednesday.


The day before Good Friday is called the 'Maundy Thursday' and it refers to Holy Thursday, when Jesus instituted the Eucharist (holy bread and wine representing the body and blood of Jesus) at the last supper, and also commemorates the washing of the Apostles feet, the word Maundy comes from the Latin word Mandatum which means commandment,Jesus said to His Apostles `A new commandment I give you,Love one another as I have loved you`.

On Good Friday, we had fasting till afternoon and had simple meals after that.
I prepared 'Koottan Choru' (a one pot meal) and Paruppu thovaiyal (fried dhal chutney).
Then we went for a small drive and I bought the marshmallow candies shaped like chicken along with Jelly bean eggs and marshmallow bunny to decorate the Easter cake.
Then attended the Good friday Mass with 'Stations of cross', a procedure / representation staged by the school children of St.Cecelia Church. That was a wonderful presentation by the kids. Everyone applauded the troop.
The we came home by 10 Pm , had mild dinner and slept.

The Saturday is the day of expectation and to bless the food in Church. In India we won't go for a blessing of food. I ran very late on cake decoration and cooking. I was not able to finish cooking 11Am . So we didn't take it for a blessing. Simply Prayed with the prepared food in our house itself.
The menu was chicken kulambu, authentic Chiken fry, raitha, rice and carrot cake. other recipes will be coming soon:)
Thanks to Premy's cake for her wonderful cake decoration ideas. They were very useful for me.


In the night , we attended the grand Easter Mass in the St. Cecelia Church of Iselin. That was a lovely Mass and the church was decorated with white flowers and the resurrected Jesus. There was a Baptism ceremony in the pond , while everyone of us confirmed the faith again. Then we returned very late at night.

The next day , that is on the Easter day we visited the orchid show in the Botanical garden, Bronx, NY. The travel was very tiresome , had to take 3 trains and a bus to reach the show. Car parking , toll and traffic were enormous .so we chose to travel by public transit. It was a very worthy journey ,as I was able to relax and enjoy the views:)
Reached the show by noon. It was very very spectacular one, a rare show and a must to see. I have never seen such a vast collection of orchid flowers in one place. The garden was so big and the freezing breeze restricted us to explore other places.
Yet enjoyed the Easter day in the NY and came home for a goodnight sleep.


Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead!

21 comments:

FH said...

Great info about Lent, didn't know much about it. Hope you had a great Easter day.
There are lot of chocolate Egg hunting goes on here rather than celebrating the idea of Easter, everything is commercialized! :D

Anonymous said...

Vicki,thats was a great read..I am used to all of them though..But always we need write ups like that..enjoyed reading on sufferings of Jesus..its a relevant theme vicky..
all of the yummy are really wonderful....
wonderful clicks too vicky !!

Cham said...

Great to hear and learn about lent and even food blessing! My son went for egg hunting , he had fun of Easter eggs! Hope u had a wonderful day!

Priya Sriram said...

Awesome write-up Viki! Learnt a lot.. :)
Cake looks so pretty! :)

Chutneytales said...

Nice post,Viki!
Hope you had a wonderful Easter day!

Gita Jaishankar said...

Great information about lent Viki, nice to read about what you cooked and all your preparations for easter! The cake decoration looks so lovely dear, WIsh you a Happy Easter :)

Ramya Vijaykumar said...

Wonderful info Viki... Nice knowing about Lent... I liked the cross and let me know when you return to the church... Cakes are decked up really well... Good write up...

ARUNA said...

Vicky, that was really an interesting read. I never knew so much abt the suffering of jesus! And very nice clicks!

Ann said...

Thanks for sharing this info. Hope you had a good easter weekend.

Vibaas said...

Nice post Viki. I studied in christian school and colleges and i had some idea about lent. nice to recollect it :)

Cake looks super yum! Nice pics. Hope you had a wonderful day!

Unknown said...

Great post abt the Holy Week. Cake looks lovely with the frosting.

Shama Nagarajan said...

nice info....cake is yummy

Yasmeen said...

Nice to know you had a blessed Easter.The cake looks so cute:)

Nandinis food said...

Nice info .....Cake is cute. Lovely decorations!
Thanks for visiting my blog.

Pooja said...

Lovely cake decoration...Nice info..

Anu said...

As all have mentioned, very informative post about lent :)
Hope u had a nice time!

Malar Gandhi said...

That is very remarkable post...info' about lent days, palm leaf cross tradition...interesting to know!!

Orchid flowers looks splendid...I bet you guys had a great time. Wish yoy belated Easter day, dear.

I like the colorful decoration...if somebody did this work, sure I won't feel like breaking the set-up!!

gtyuk said...

Though I don't practise, since my teddies are in a catholic scoool, they went to the mass to bring me the Buxus leaves (here instead of palm leaves they use buxus); hope you had a wonderful Easter!

my kids had a nice time hunting eggs in our garden too :)

Dhanya Ganesh said...

First time here. You have a lovely blog. Got a lot of informations. Also the Cake looks lovely.

Vrinda said...

Nice cake....liked the cute bunnies

Premyscakes said...

Hi viki, hope u had a great easter weekend. And i learned lot from your informative write up. Decoration on the cake looks awesome viki.

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