Święconka, the blessing of the Easter baskets, remains one of my favorite traditions from growing up in Plymouth, PA where most of my high school class had last names ending in -ski or -wicz. Polish, Lithuanian, Slovak, Ukrainian. We all felt sorry for the Irish Catholic kids because they got oatmeal for breakfast on Easter Sunday. We feasted on kielbasa, bread, horseradish, roast pork, ham, butter (frequently pounded into the shape of a lamb), salt (important), hardboiled eggs, nut roll, poppy seed roll, and frequently enough some chocolate slipped in there. Mom always included an orange or two as well. I suspect each family had its customs and even only-once-a-year foods and secret cake recipes for the basket. One year mom was cooking the ham, kielbasa, pork, and so on for the basket on Good Friday. Dad came out of the office and asked, “Eleanor, are you trying to kill me?” The house was redolent and the salivary glands were in overdrive. It was a special kind of suffering while fasting.
I have memories as a kid of Father Malinowski, among others, coming to the house, to bless the baskets on mom’s kitchen table. I note Fr. Malinowski as he taught me how to be an altar boy in third grade at St. Mary’s School . Fifty years later he was primary concelebrant at my Mass of Thanksgiving in Plymouth fifty years later. Great man and a tremendous priest both when young (he was newly ordained) and when we reconnected after I entered the Society.
For several years, particularly when mom was still living, I was able to get to Plymouth to bless the baskets. The first year I used the prayers from the “Book of Blessings.” I was sorely disappointed in them. They were as bland as room temperature water when dying of thirst. The following year I wrote to a Polish Jesuit who sent the prayers used in Poland. They will be included below in English. If anyone wants the Polish send a message. Of course mom did not have to go to the church to get her basket blessed after I was ordained. Nor did any of the neighbors. They just brought them to the house. The Polish prayers include four separate blessings for the bread, the kielbasa, the salt, and the egg.
The photo below is the table from a few years ago when I was able to have the typical easter breakfast, including two Polish Jesuits. It was a fun morning. I wore the stole to bless the food immediately before we ate. It was an ordination gift a Vietnamese Jesuit had made for me by Vietnamese Carmelite nuns. There was of course a lot more food in the pantry. The bread came from a monastery while the kielbasa, poppyseed, and apricot roll came from home (Tarnowski’s and Buttonwood Bakery).
Have a most Blessed Easter.
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