Holy Week in Poland

After a peacing out of Poland to spend major holidays with my cousins in Lithuania, I decided to stay in Poland for Holy Week.  As luck would have it, my lovely cousins in Katowice decided to invite me to their house for the holidays, so I still was blessed to be with family!  The day by day breakdown is below!

Holy Thursday

Lodz Cathedral

This is possibly my favorite Mass during the WHOLE Liturgical year.  It's filled with so much rich symbolism, tradition, and beauty that it's hard to believe that the next day is the death of Christ.

For the first time, I was at the seat of a diocese, the Archdiocese of Łódź.  Hands down, it's the most beautiful Mass I've every experienced in Poland.  It's also the first time I've seen incense used properly and there was a Eucharistic procession around the church.  My friend Dara joined me for the service and I always love having someone to point out some of the symbolic actions present in the Mass.  

Bishop washing feet

As usual, the bishop washed the feet of 12 men from the congregation.  There was lots of incense and holy water and beautiful things.  Singing the Gloria in Polish, or listening rather, was beautiful.  I was SO excited that they ring all the bells in the church during the Gloria.  It's one of the best memories I have of altar serving at St. Hyacinth.  After Mass, the procession away from the altar was accompanied by wooden clackers, just like home.  Disappointingly, they didn't strip the altar, which has always been one of my favorite symbolic gestures towards Good Friday.

Good Friday

Unfortunately, my train to Katowice was smack dab in the middle of Good Friday (11 am-2pm ish).  Thus, I missed the normal Good Friday services.  Usually, my family would be at the church from 12-3 pm, commemorating the time Jesus was on the Cross.  But, I kept the fast and abstinence part of the day!

Holy Saturday

Back home, our churches have three or four times for Swieconka, the blessing of the Easter baskets.  At my family's church in Katowice, they have blessings every fifteen minutes!  Families decorate their baskets with flowers and beautiful crocheted/knitted/embroidered doilies and all head down to the church for the blessing.  Because there are so many people, the blessings occur outside, not in the church.  Before I found out that this was a logistical thing, I thought it was another really cool symbolic way to show that Christ wasn't in the Church anymore.  

Luckily, the weather was fairly good when we went to stand outside!  Easter Sunday wasn't exactly as cooperative.

Easter Sunday

We went to Mass at the local church in the morning.  It was nice because everyone was dressed up and I got to wear my pretty new dress :)  After Mass, we had an Easter breakfast.  It started out with a piece of bread and hard boiled egg which we ate altogether after wishes for health in the rest of the year.

Walking Grzegorz's puppy
  in a winter wonderland!

After breakfast, we watched some of the Mass in Rome, which was pretty cool to see the new Pope!  Then
we went to hang out with some of their cousins that live in Katowice.  Being with a close family was really cool!  It did make me really miss my aunts, uncles, and cousins who were celebrating Easter back at my house.  But never fear, because by the time we got home, everyone was at my house and I got to Skype in and say hi!

The weather on Easter Sunday was SO WEIRD.  There was a crazy amount of snow.  On a good day, from the flat, you can see some mountains in the distance.  In the afternoon on Sunday, you couldn't even

Cousins...caught in a snowstorm

see the forest we went for a walk in earlier that day.  Over the course of the whole day, we had over half a foot of snow.  Funny thing is, Poland had a green Christmas!

Easter Monday
In Poland, Smigus Dyngus falls on Easter Monday and traditionally involves boys throwing water on girls as "good luck" in finding a husband.  These days, it's just an excuse for mischievousness kids to get into mischief.

Around noon, we went over to another family member's house to hang out.  In Poland, Easter Monday is still a national holiday, so no one had to work yet!  Since there was a bazillion inches of snow, I found myself in a few snowbanks on our walk around the neighborhood.  I might be somewhat at fault for that though seeing how I started a few snowball fights!