by John Kass

Easter Sunday 2023

April 16, 2023

I think we’ll have a leg of lamb for Sunday dinner. The boys will bring their girlfriends over and we’ll sit down, pray together, and have dinner together, just the six of us. It’s Easter Sunday. Families still come together on Easter Sunday, don’t they?

Betty thought about making lamb shanks and orzo. But she’s the one doing the cooking. I’m not doing the cooking. A whole roast leg of lamb will do. It will give up a bone for broth.  I’m a broth crazy man. She’ll make roast leg of lamb and bake some pasta in the meat juices in the ancient style, with crushed San Marzano tomatoes and loads of salty, grated Mizithra cheese.

I used to cook in the ancient style too, my cooking reaching back to the Middle East of 10,000  years ago, to the first civilization between the Tigris and Euphrates, when wheat was first cultivated and lamb was first domesticated, when this thing of ours with lamb and coals began.

It began thousands of years before the birth of Christ, and thousands of years before the blind poet Homer first told his epic adventure that launched the study of Literature, of The Odyssey about my hero and patron saint. The king of Ithaca. The man of wrath. Imperfect. Prideful. Dangerous. Crafty. A Greek. What you’d call a sinner. In other words, a man.

Those of you who’ve been with me on this journey of  years may remember those stories I’ve written about the roasting of the Easter lamb, the paschal lamb, low and slow over coals in commemorating  the Pascha, that we Greeks call our Easter the Pascha, the Jews call this time the Pesach (Passover).

I just can’t do that now. I can’t stoop over hot coals. Some of you know why. Of course, our sons can do it. They’re fine young men, honorable and straight who keep the traditions of their people and their church. And I’ve taught them, but I would probably ruin the day by stubbornly getting up and trying to do more than I could. I don’t want drama.

So a roast leg of lamb in the oven is a good deal.

The thing is, I’m just not all that crazy about food these days, or beer. Some of you have seen those photographs. I’ve gone from 265  pounds now down to 186 pounds. How much is too much? When I make it to middleweight and get out of the wheelchair for a few four-rounders I’ll figure it out.

It’s never been about the food for me, it’s never been about gorging myself, the good and wise among you know this. It has always been an ecclesiastical thing, about sharing and celebrating the holiday and the gathering with friends and family.

If you ask me I’m more of a Ramen, or more accurately, a Pho guy. That’s all I want to eat. Broth, delicious broth of  Southeast Asia, the  broth found in  ramen, which was developed in China but taken to an art form in Japan. I’ve  also got to learn how to work on  spicy Green Curry. I’ve been told for years by journalism critics of the left (aren’t  they always of the left?) that I should “evolve”.

Isn’t my annoying “Mr. Pho” persona evidence of  a desire to reach a new life form, or not?

At our Holy Saturday lunch, my mom and I reminisced about a dog we once had, a stubborn thick headed German Shorthair Pointer named Jason. “God bless Jason,” my mom said. “I miss him”.

And it’s a good thing she missed cracking him hard with a broom after she caught him with his typical “sad face,” which was really a guilty face with the meat strings from a ten pound Boston Roast Beef hanging from his mouth. As she screamed  and chased him around the room with a broom she didn’t sound like she was saying “God bless you Jason.”

I think  this happened around the time of the snakes that our cousins joined us in pouring out in the backyard. She swung the broom at the top of the stairs, missed the dog, but he yelped as if skinned, and she fell going thump thump thumpity thump all the way down the stairs, breaking her tailbone.

Just as guests were about to arrive, Jason tried to comfort his mistress with the meat strings still hanging from his teeth. He tried to nuzzle her on the floor to soothe her. She wasn’t in the mood.

“That dog”, she sighed wistfully on Saturday.

She knows that journeys end. I’ve learned it. I haven’t wanted to admit it, but I know it  now. The trees know. The wolf knows, and all God’s creatures. Great Lent is all about a journey too, and I’m so very glad and blessed that you’ve been on this journey with me. I’m not done. I have a few spears left to throw. But all journeys  end.

Consider this wisdom, not mine, but from a good and Holy man.

He writes: Every morning we ask ourselves, “What should I wear?” The choice we make may say something about us. We also might get a self-esteem boost from our clothing. At the very least, we know we’re protected from the elements .Perhaps similar but more urgent question is: “How is my soul clothed?” Throughout Great Lent, the theme of spiritual vesture comes to the fore in hymns and Scripture readings.”

That’s the opening passage of a piece on Lent written by  the Greek Orthodox metropolitan, his Eminence Nathaniel, my spiritual father, and published at johnkassnews.com

His was a gentle plea to shed the callousness of the heart every day during Lent. I’ve savored it since it was published. You might take some biscuit and bacon with you on a long walk in the woods. I took Metropolitan Nathaniel’s plea that we attend to our souls. I also took Patrick Hickey’s impressive and important column “City of God, 2023.”

“We all bear the sin of Adam and the mark of Cain,” he writes.

Amen.

We do bear it. All of us.

And those who refuse to acknowledge it? You really can’t help them.

It has been a rather difficult journey for some of us this year. But personally, I prefer to think of my stroke and quadruple bypass as markers along the way telling me how far I’ve come and how far I must go. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write three columns a week, I’m so sorry for disappointing some of you, but I look at how far I’ve come already and feel so blessed to spend another Easter with my  family.

And with y0u.

I have been blessed to be able to do the weekly Chicago Way podcast with Jeff Carlin. And new voice-to-text technology is also helping me write columns. The wonderful therapists at Shirley Ryan Ability Labs (the angels of G0d), tell me I’m improving, so we’ll see.

It’s not about the pain, or the weakness or the obstacles. It’s about getting up.

And always and ever it is about the Resurrection, bells ringing on Easter Sunday, the red eggs, and the words of the people in church. And what my wife will tell me on Easter Sunday morning and for40 days afterward.

“Christos Anesti”! Christ has Risen! 

“Alithos  Anesti” Truly He Is Risen! 

With love and peace for all.

Happy Easter.

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