Easter Weekend

South America is known for being a super Catholic nation and Chile is anything but an exception. Chileans spend all of Semana Santa (Holy Week) in church, praying and preparing for the resurrection, but ironically, Easter Sunday is treated as practically nothing. My host parents went to church Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday morning AND Saturday night. Gaby (my host mom) tried to explain the significance of all the different Masses to me but my Spanish religious vocabulary is definitely lacking and I'd be lying if I said I totally understood everything she said. What I did get out of her explanations was this: Thursday night’s mass consisted of a washing of the feet ceremony. The priest chooses 12 random men or boys to come up and have their feet washed in front of the whole church. It symbolizes Jesus’s love for the 12 apostles since that is what he did for them at the Last Supper.  Friday was more of a mourning mass, obviously mourning the death of Jesus. On Saturday, my host parents left at 8 am and returned at noon for lunch, only to go back at 8 pm and come home at 2 am! I was told that the Saturday night service is a very extended “midnight mass”. Gaby explained that they turn off the electricity for the entire service but each person inside the church holds a lit candle. At the stroke of midnight everyone blows out their candles, pauses and then they turn the lights on. This symbolizes that “Christ has risen” and they have a regular mass afterwards as well as a small celebration with potluck style food and hot chocolate.  

            Sunday I was mentally preparing for a huge celebration but was surprised to discover that there were actually no plans at all. My host parents (and the rest of the local Catholic community) were tired from the service on Saturday night so they slept in. There was no Easter brunch, as I am accustomed to, much to my disappointment. Later in the day, Gaby casually popped into my room saying we were invited to her daughter’s house for lunch. There were no special foods served and not a single decoration to be found. Nobody was dressed in fancy clothes and the Easter bunny wasn't ever mentioned. It was as if it was just a normal Sunday lunch with the family. They only “Easter” related part of the whole day was all of the little kids being given lots of chocolate eggs to eat by their grandparents. Before we sat down to eat, there was a heated discussion between the older generations (my host parents and their friends) and the younger generations (their children and their friends) regarding the Catholic church and homosexuality which I felt slightly uncomfortable to be apart of but luckily I wasn't directly asked to speak on either side. There are clearly different perceptions of the way things "should be" which tend to be generational (at least that was the closing argument - "agree to disagree") but I think that could be true of anywhere, not just in Chile. 

My take away of this weekend was that Chileans see the holiday as a much more religious experience, spending a majority of the time in prayer in church, while American's seemingly are much more about the brunch, the mimosas and Easter egg hunts. Obviously Easter is intended to be a religious holiday and more than just an excuse for a party and I can appreciate both sides of that but to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure that I enjoy the holiday as much without my Dad’s waffles with strawberries!