On the Sweetness of General Conference
There was talk this General Conference about working in more Holy Week and Easter activities to our liturgical calendars. I will have more to say on that later.
General Conference has always been part of my personal liturgical calendar.
There is April, when were are outside tilling and manuring and going garden chores in the spring. The air is fresh. Conference is playing on a radio (when I was young) or now on phones or a bluetooth. We have notebooks sitting on fence posts or barrels. From time to time we run over to make a note. I have dirt smudges in my old notebooks to remind me.
In October, outside picking and then inside processing apples. The smell of canning. I have apple smudges in my notebooks.
Then jumping into the shower, scrubbing my hands, the drive to priesthood session (sadly, this part is done, both drive and priesthood sessoin), half drowsing because exhausted, the men singing.
Sunday is happy, driving to church for music and the spoken word (we are the only ones any more, but we still do), home, preparing the meal during the second session, tomato stains on our notebooks.
The sweetness that pervades throughout. The music. The sadness as the voice announces that this has been a Bonnevile Communications production, the organ playing, and the camera showing shots of the grounds.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | Tags: on the sweetness of Mormon life
WJT
April 3, 2023
Since when did the CJCLDS have a “liturgical calendar” or “Holy Week”?
WJT
April 3, 2023
My understanding was always that Mormons celebrate Easter as we celebrate Thanksgiving — as a cultural-Christian custom in which as Christians we are happy to participate, but not as a part of our religion proper and not affecting our normal mode of worship. Unless things have changed since my day, sometimes churches aren’t even open on Easter Sunday, if it happens to fall on the first Sunday in April.
WJT
April 3, 2023
“Latter-day Saints conduct Easter Sunday services [because it’s Sunday!] but do not follow the religious observances of Ash Wednesday, Lent, or Holy Week.”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/easter?lang=eng
John Mansfield
April 3, 2023
The frequent discussion of Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Easter left me wondering how I would take it if the next time I attend Sunday School, the instructor and everyone else in the room had switched to always referring to the New Testament Christians as Saint Thomas, Saint Stephen, Saint Luke, etc., and always called Jesus’ mother “the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
Rozy
April 3, 2023
In recent years I have often wondered why the church invests so much into Christmas celebrations and so little into Easter. As was said in conference without Easter, or the resurrection, there would be no Christmas. Why no decorations, concerts, devotionals, special music, etc.? The rest of the Christian world makes a big deal out of preparing for and celebrating Easter. It seems to me that we who best know the risen Lord ought to be making more of a celebration of the fact that He is indeed risen and living, actively restoring all things in preparation for His return. I appreciated Elder Stevenson’s talk, and the article in the April Liahona about “Making Easter a Time to Remember the Savior.” I wish I’d had this when I was raising our children.
Evenstar
April 4, 2023
One theory I’ve come across is that Christmas was more emphasized in Northern Europe while Easter was more emphasized in Southern Europe. For me personally having Christmas to look forward to makes winter easier to bear. Easter comes with spring and spring is often its own reward.
John Mansfield
April 4, 2023
Those things Jesus did which we commemorate with Easter are things we also remember and talk about and make part of our worship most weeks of the year. Anniversaries are nice focal points, but for the latter-day saints Easter is not so important as it may be for others because it is far, far from being the only day or week of the year that we remember the resurrection and those things leading up to it.
Marilyn
April 4, 2023
WJT, For whatever reason, I think the restored Church of Jesus Christ used to de-emphasize Holy Week. (My MIL was on the family home evening committee years ago and proposed some lesson plans to go with Easter week, and was told “no, that looks too much like Holy Week celebration”). But I think in recent years there’s been a move to re-emphasize those events and make Easter a more significant celebration (i.e. multi-day, a whole “season” like Christmas). BYU professor Eric D. Huntsman wrote a whole book/blog about ways to celebrate meaningfully at Easter.
I personally love it. For 10 years or so our family has tried to make Holy Week a sacred week. We have drawn from other religious traditions but with our own Latter-day Saint emphasis because we have some knowledge other churches don’t (e.g. on the Saturday we like to read Joseph F. Smith’s vision of the Savior appearing in the Spirit World).
We got an “Easter creche” (like a nativity scene) with figures of Christ and the angel and Mary and the Empty Tomb which we set out for several weeks preceding. We write our favorite names of Christ and put them up on the wall. On Thursday night we have a passover-ish dinner where we talk about Passover traditions, how the Savior would have celebrated, the Sacrament, etc. We make pretzels on Good Friday and “Empty Tomb” rolls on Sunday morning. We sing “Praise to the Lord the Almighty” on Palm Sunday and “O Savior Thou Who Wearest a Crown” on Friday and other sacrament hymns during the week. The week-long emphasis on the Savior and his life (even though as John Mansfield said, we try to emphasize that all year long as well!) has been wonderful for our family. We love the traditions, the feeling of holiday and celebration, and the way it makes us feel connected to our Christian brothers and sisters from other churches.
G.
April 11, 2023
Thanks for the excellent comments, all. Marilyn, very interesting.