Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate

Endowment Fund in Memory of Sr. Amelia Kuska

Special Ministry to the Aged

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Traditional Blessed Easter Meals for the Homebound

For over 30 years the Sisters have been providing their homebound clients with a traditional Easter dinner. A week before the Holy Saturday dinner delivery, the Sisters begin their preparations by ordering and picking up the various foods needed for the meal.

Many hours of preparation, cooking, baking and decorating are involved to create the elaborate traditional Easter table. The beautifully laid table contains fresh Easter lilies, colored eggs, ham and cold meats, coils of sausages, a Paschal Lamb or "Baranek" made of butter, cheese, horseradish, salt and pepper. Cakes of all kinds (particularly babka) and Easter Mazurek (a flat cake, filled with nuts, raisins, and dried fruits) are also added to the table.

Everything is artistically decorated with Halleluja, Alleluja and Happy Easter.The pictures above show the table the Sisters decorate in their office for their Holy Saturday dinner delivery.

On Holy Saturday, the Sisters and volunteers begin their celebration with the traditional blessing of the Easter Food (Swieconka). This tradition signifies that one is grateful to God for all His gifts of both nature and grace. As a token of this gratitude, the food of the table is sanctified with the hope that spring, the season of the Resurrection, will also be blessed by God's goodness and mercy.

Fr. Walt Jenne, the Spiritual Advisor to the SSMI Sisters, officiates at the food blessing. Volunteers join in the blessing by bringing their own individual food baskets.

After the blessing of food and a luncheon the Sisters and volunteers get to work in the Sister's kitchen to prepare the various food containers for delivery to the homebound clients.

Each homebound person receives an Easter decorated food container containing slices of cooked ham, an individual kielbasa ring, hard boil eggs, Easter candy, individual rye bread and sweet raisin bread. For some, this is the only celebration they will have for Easter Sunday.

After packing all the individual meals the volunteers are given their assignments and get on the road to deliver the delicious meals.

Each client is visited by the Sisters or volunteers who deliver the Easter meals and spend some time visiting the clients and sharing the Easter spirit.

The Sisters would like to thank all those who contributed great or small to make this event possible. Special Thanks to the volunteers who sacrificed their time on Holy Saturday to be part of the Easter Blessing of Food and worked together in the kitchen and in delivering the special Easter Meals.God Bless You All !!!!

God Bless You All !!!!

We would like to share with you a few thank you notes we received from the clients receiving Easter Meals:

Dear Sisters & Volunteers,
Many thanks for helping us have a fine Easter. It made us all feel important that you would care to do such a nice thing for a stranger; We are all so blessed that you live among us, and love God and man also!

Thanks - To Sisters Servants of the Poor and Volunteers
I want to thank you very much for the Easter eggs and kielbasa and Easter bread's and candies. That I appreciated it from my heart for thinking of me on Easter Time.
From your friend.
Jesus Christ is Risen Allelluia !!