Catholics have Easter foods blessed at cathedral today

YOUNGSTOWN

The Blessing of Easter Foods ceremony at St. Columba Cathedral on Holy Saturday was, for some, a beautiful relatively new experience, and for others, a comforting lifetime tradition.

“It just doesn’t feel like Easter if the food is not blessed,” said Agnes Krut of Campbell, 91, who said she has enjoyed the tradition since she was a little girl.

Krut, who taught elementary school in Campbell for 40 years and is a member of Christ the Good Shepherd Parish and the former St. John the Baptist Parish, said the food blessing is “very important, particularly at my age.”

Krut’s basket contained ham, Easter sweetbread, bacon, kielbasa and Easter egg cheese made of eggs and sugar.

The custom of gathering at the church to have decorated baskets of foods, not eaten during Lent, but eaten during the first Easter meal, sprang from the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe.

Traditionally, the basket contains ham, a candle, eggs, cheese, salt, sweetbread, sausage or kielbasa and butter.

However, said Monsignor Peter M. Polando, St. Columba’s rector, it is not necessary to be Polish or of Eastern or Central European ancestry to enjoy the Blessing of the Easter basket tradition.

Read more about the event in Sunday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.