Every Easter my family and I go to the lakeside sunrise service at my hometown church. We wake up extra early, check out Easter baskets (you’re never too old for Easter baskets), and get dressed to go hear the Easter story and watch the sun rise. It’s one of my favorite church services of the year. After that we go home, dress for “big church”, attend a second church service, and then go eat lunch with my grandparents. It’s a really good holiday for us. Easter comes at the perfect time. The weather is warming up and spring colors are blooming. I also like Easter a lot because it seems a lot less commercialized in comparison to the major holidays before it. By this point, everyone is sick of jack-o-lanterns, faux fur stockings, ginormous red hearts and all the other loot from which Hallmark gets rich. I feel like Easter is one of the few holidays that stays true to its origin. Maybe its just because my family and I have always stressed the biblical importance of the holiday, but I like to think that everyone remembers the real reason behind the bunny— la risurrezione della carne e la vita eterna.
This Easter was different than any I’ve experienced in the past. There was no sunrise service, no Easter basket, and no luncheon with the grandparents. Most unfortunately, my family wasn’t here to celebrate the holiday together. However, I still wanted to give Easter a fair celebration, so I decided I would observe the religious holiday on my accord. This included watching “The Passion of the Christ”, attending an Italian Easter mass and eating a Easter luncheon with my new study abroad family.
“The Passion of the Christ” was disturbing and emotional (per usual). It is just crazy to watch the vivid imagery of what Jesus actually had to endure in order to selflessly forgive us of our abundant sins. I love the actor who plays Jesus in the film too. He’s the kind of guy that is plain lovable. No one can hate him. He seems so genuine and good-natured. He did an incredible job of portraying Christ. I like to think of Jesus as a friend, a pal, one of the boys. In the film, he comes across as just that. A simple man with the breath of God in him. Watching “The Passion of the Christ” was a good opener to my makeshift Italian Easter weekend. It put my head and my heart in the right place.
Next on the Easter agenda: go to an Italian Easter service. So I researched churches near our residence and sent out an invite to all the kids in the program to join me in the lobby Sunday morning at 10am. I was surprised when more than expected showed up in the lobby dressed and ready to go. There were six of us. We walked about 20 minutes until we arrived at the San Zeno Cathedral of Verona. It was a beautiful church. It was also undoubtedly Catholic. The choir was unbelievable. Their angelic sound echoed through the dim, damp, cool cathedral. It was almost eerie, but a beautiful sort of eerie.
Our view during the service. This is the only picture I could manage to take. I felt weird taking pictures inside of the church, even if it was before the service started.
We sat in a pew toward the middle. A young woman came and sat by me. She started speaking to me in Italian. I surprisingly understood her first few sentences, but as she continued to talk, I had to come clean. The gig was up. I confessed I didn’t speak much Italian. I offered to speak to her in Espanol, but she said she only spoke Italian and Polish. We laughed in confusion at one another as we tried to communicate before the service. She was very helpful however. She pointed me to the pages I needed to know in the pamphlet and nudged me when I was supposed to stand and kneel and sit and stand and kneel and stand and kneel and sit and stand and sit… The Catholics are a kinetic bunch.
During the times I was seated and listening to the service in Italian, I assumed I would be lost in translation. The opposite was true however. I decided to navigate the service using my pamphlet and coincidentally enough, I found I was able to translate most of the service by reading the words on paper. It was a breakthrough, even if it took me 25 minutes into the service to figure out this new means of understanding. Trust me, 25 minutes was no time at all. These Italian Catholics take their sweet time and a Sunday mass service was no exception to the rule.
I did make a friend during communion. Her name was Claudia and since I’m not Catholic and couldn’t partake in communion, I decided I would get chatty with the girl in the pew ahead of me. She kept staring at me and so I decided to ask her name. Of course we conversed in Italian. I was proud of myself…even if Claudia was only six years old. Perhaps that is why she understood my elementary Italian phrases so well. We were probably on close to the same level as far as language goes. We talked a little bit and it was nice to be able to have a semi-decent conversation in Italian. When her teenage brother got back from taking communion and sat down next to her, he would whisper English phrases for her to ask me. It was kind of cute to see the little girl put forth an effort to communicate with me. I saw the sweeter, less boisterous side of Italians today. It was nice.
After the service Jackson, Steph and I decided it was worth the expense to have a solid Easter lunch. We walked to a nearby restaurant and had Italy’s finest—pizza. Pizza for Easter lunch? I know, sounds strange, but when you’re in the country of Italy, it is hard to find anything besides pizza and pasta. So in light of our “Italian Easter Adventure” we decided it was only fitting. We ate and told stories of our families. We decided in unison that we all were missing our families. This is the first Easter that I’ve spent away from them. Its strange, but holidays make you miss the ones you love. I suppose living in a foreign country for months has the same effect. It’s refreshing to get away from the world you know, but it will be comforting to see all six of those weirdos again soon.
Despite being away from my blood family, I enjoyed spending the Easter holiday with my newfound family I’ve built over here. I care about each one of them so much, they may as well be my siblings (except Jared, he’s the Dad of course).
I will leave you with one last taste of our Italian Easter Adventure. As we sat through the service, I recognized one part in particular that was especially familiar to both my church upbringing and to the Easter season as well. I thought it was a nice slice of home. Read and believe:
Professione Di Fede
Io credo in Dio Padre onnipotente,
Creatore del cielo e della terra;
E in Gesu Cristo, suo unico Figlio, nostro Signore,
Il quale fu concepito di Spirito Santo,
Nacque da Maria Vergine,
Pati sotto Ponzio Pilato,
Fu crocifisso, mori e fu sepolto;
Discese agli inferi,
Il terzo giorno risuscito da morte;
Sali al cielo,
Siede alla destra di Dio Padre onnipotente;
Di la verra a guidicare vivi e I morti.
Credo nello Spirito Santo,
La santa Chiesa cattolica,
La comunione dei santi,
La remissione dei peccati,
La risurrezione della carne,
La vita eterna. Amen.
…Ciao!
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