Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! He is our joy and our hope.
But what does that mean for your Catholic household?
For many families, it means relief that Lent is finally over. Having done your best to lead your family through Lent in age-appropriate ways, teach the rituals of the church for the Lenten season, and deal with any tensions that may have come as you attempted to make Lenten sacrifices, you are thrilled when Lent is over and Easter arrives.
Alleluia! We rejoice in the beauty of the Easter Mass. Perhaps we have a lovely Easter meal, maybe add spring flowers to our decor, have Easter baskets, and then…what??
We’ve made it through 40 days of Lent. But after we celebrate Easter Sunday, we kind of forget that Easter is 50 days long. Perhaps we know it cognitively but are at a loss for what to do as a family to celebrate the great miracle of the resurrection for fifty days once normal daily life has resumed.
During Lent, we Catholics have weekly fish fries or Lenten meals at our parishes, Stations of the Cross, and regular family check-ins about how we’re doing with our Lenten sacrifices. Parish life and church traditions have given us rituals as touchstones and invitations to grow during Lent. The church, in her wisdom, must have known that people need touchstones, especially during challenging times. We often feel closer as a family because we participate in regularly scheduled rituals during Lent. So how can families continue to grow closer to God and each other and experience joy during the Easter season?
Just as the rituals and routines of the Lenten season were scheduled for our parish church life, we can intentionally schedule family rituals at home for our domestic church life in four key areas - praying, talking, working, and playing together. It seems like these things should just happen naturally in family life, but they actually seldom occur if not thoughtfully scheduled.
Prayer is a ritual that families ramp up during Lent by doing things like Stations of the Cross and adding more scheduled prayer to our family life. If family prayer disappears when Lent ends, we could be inadvertently sending the message that family prayer is only meant as a Lenten penance. Continuing family prayer times through Easter and beyond allows our family to make God the most important person in the family, who is there in every circumstance to love and guide us.
Talking in any meaningful way can often be lost due to busy schedules that only leave time for the most basic informational exchanges. During Lent, we may have talked about the scriptures of the season or what we were working on spiritually. Easter is a wonderful time to begin the dinner or bedtime ritual of sharing moments where we felt blessed by God in our day. We can also read and discuss the scriptures that followed the story of the Resurrection.
Working together may have been a part of your Lenten activities as you worked together on acts of charity or service. Your family can continue serving together by doing even one chore at home together, such as cleaning up after dinner while you continue to talk or dance to fun music together. We can also intentionally do service for others together, such as making sandwiches for the local mission or making cards for those in a local nursing home.
Playing together is something that seems natural with the coming of Easter. Easter egg hunts and toys in Easter baskets all speak of the joy of Easter, leading us to playfulness and enjoyment of family time. The fifty days of Easter should be celebrated by scheduling some form of family fun together every day. A quick round of Uno, a walk after dinner, reading a few pages of a family read-aloud book, and kicking around a soccer ball are just a few examples of ways to break away from the work of daily life and celebrate being a joyful Catholic family.
Praying, talking, working, and playing together allows us to draw closer to God and each other and celebrate the gift of Easter, and all God’s gifts, every day.
