Faith at Home: Planning Ahead to April

In just a little over a week, it will be Easter. Holy Week will be over and past. After our long season of fasting, it will be time for a season of feasting. Consider this lily a tantalizing advance preview. The only way we can celebrate Easter on time is if we think ahead now.

As a priest and a mom, it’s easy for me to get so caught up in Holy Week observances that Easter itself almost comes as a surprise. When my kids were still little, I created a family tradition of hunting Easter baskets using clues from the Bible. This started when only one of my kids was old enough to read, so it’s been going quite a while!

It also means many years I’m up early on Easter Sunday – not for a sunrise service, but to finish making clues and hiding baskets. I hope that won’t be true again this year. But if it is, I’ll take comfort in the fact that Easter is a season, not just a day.

Liturgical Time in April

This year, April is all Easter all the time. We have seven weeks of feasting that begin with the feast of the resurrection of our Lord on April 1.

This month’s printable PDF notes that the Annunciation, usually celebrated on March 25, is transferred due to Holy Week and Easter Week. It is transferred all the way to April 9th. We also have another “Red Letter Day,” the feast of St. Mark on April 25th.

There are contemporary remembrances in April as well. The church observes the remembrance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, the date of his death. We also remember The Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who confessed the lordship of Christ and resisted the Nazi government. They remind us in difficult times that the values of truth, love and justice are unchanging. Our Lord has already won the victory, and we can trust him with our lives.

Keeping Easter

Since we’re in Easter for all of April, our archive for Easter is right here.

One way to keep the season is by making it come alive in your home through forcing branches or simply setting aside a tabletop to tell the story. Heather Sleightholm writes of her home decorations,

It was a lot of fun for us to create these little vignettes, and I imagine we will keep it up throughout the seasons. These little projects are learning experiences for us all, and are working themselves into the rhythm of our lives by bring the liturgical year out of the church and into our home.

Celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation on Monday, April 9

While researching this post I learned that in Sweden, the word for “waffle day” sounds so much like the word for “our Lady’s day” that waffles are traditionally eaten to celebrate this feast.

A dessert of waffles, fruit and whipped cream and a look at some of the images of the Annunciation would be a memorable observance. Telling the story matters too.

Honoring St. Mark on Monday, April 25th

Scholars say that St. Mark’s gospel is the earliest. It is surely the shortest and has the most mysterious ending.

In the past we’ve suggested planting mustard seeds or sauteeing mustard greens to honor this saint. He scattered seeds of faith that continue to this day. Depending on where you are in the world, this could be a day to seed some plants in his honor.

April on Grow Christians

We’re celebrating Easter, introducing a new book to help in your walk with Christ as an Episcopalian, and much more. We’d love to hear from you about how you are discovering new life and keeping Easter all season long.

The Write for Us link is right here.

 

---

 

How do you keep the Easter season?