Holy Saturday and the Easter Basket…..I always wondered is Holy Saturday a day of penace or not… It seems like it ought to be.. Jesus died on the cross. Jesus is silent on Holy Saturday today.. But on Holy Saturday there is a Polish Tradition of blessing the Easter Baskets..

As a priest I always loved blessing the Easter Baskets.. Being Polish felt there was a tradition in blessing the Easter Baskets that was lost in our modern world. Blessing of the Easter Baskets seems to be a hang over from the old country. That being said at many of the parishes I loved seeing the many Easter Baskets..that were filled with the dinner for Easter Sunday.. Meats, Eggs, Chesse and wine.

And after the blessing of the Easter Baskets on Holy Saturday Today..the families would give the priest a portion of the Easter meal that was in the Easter Basket. I would leave the blessing of the Easter Baskets with eggs, cheese and wine…very delicious.

This Polish tradition saw in this Holy Saturday tradition of blessing the Easter Baskets that Holy Saturday was not a day of mourning but a day 0f Joy. Jesus went to limbo to preach the Gospel of Salvation to Adam and Eve and all the holy men and women who lived before Christ came in the flesh but lived in hope of Christ. The Easter basket contained what we gave up in lent..if a dad gave up wine.. there would be a bottle of wine in the Easter Basket. If a mom gave up chocolate there would be a bar of chocolate in the Easter Basket with a bow around it..

The Blessing of the Easter Basket which is a tradition from the old country, namely Poland, showed that Holy Saturday was not a day of mourning but of joy filled hope. The priest blessed the Easter Basket precisely because the Easter Basket contained the meal that the family would eat on Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ…