Lent | Book of Days

Mar 30 2026

Easter, Easter Triduum, Good Friday, Holy Thursday, Holy Week, Lent, Maundy Thursday

The Strangeness of Holy Week

The spring equinox has come and gone, the moon grows larger each night, and our Lenten journey nears completion now that Palm Sunday has passed. We have entered into Holy Week, holiest of weeks, culminating in Easter Sunday and the core of what those of us who profess to be Christians believe: that Christ suffered, died, and was buried, and rose again on the third day.

This is a lot to process, no? And the violence at the week’s end, unnerving. I’ve been reading these past few weeks a book we sell in the shop, Bitter & Sweet: A Journey into Easter. It is a Lenten devotional by Tsh Oxenreider with daily readings for each of the days of this season that began in February with Ash Wednesday. Her welcoming chapter begins with words that have stuck with me since I first read them: “Lent is strange because Easter is strange.” She’s absolutely right. We are asked to believe an awful lot.

But this is my heritage and I enter the week with the reverence that I was taught by those who came before me. I remember them as I proceed with the ceremonies and rituals, as I sit in dark churches late at night, as I gather with the ones I love to cook and bake and feast. There are things we do each year just because we do what we do, and it would be strange indeed not to do them. And so the waxing moon will wax and grow and the days and nights will come and go: Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Spy Wednesday. The moon will wax to fullness that night.

As for Lent: it will come to a close with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday (also known as Holy Thursday). The Mass sets in motion the Easter Triduum, as we are taught, through Christ’s example at that Mass, to be humble and to be of service to our fellow human beings––a sentiment so very out of favor these days.

After Mass, the Night Watch will begin, only after the sun has set and night has fallen. The Pange Lingua, the beloved song of St. Thomas Aquinas, will have been sung, the statues in the church will have been covered in purple cloth (purple, the color of penitence), the blessed sacrament will have been set amongst lit candles, as the lights in the church are dimmed. The crowds, by this time, will have gone, leaving but a few hardy souls who will sit and hold their vigil.

Seth and I, we will sit in the close and holy darkness of three different churches that night. This is the old pilgrimage, usually beginning at your home parish, but then processing beyond, out into the world. It is a custom taught to me by my grandmother, Assunta, and I will think of her, and I will think of all who have come and gone through my life, for this, too, is what we do. The night will grow late, and it will get quieter and quieter, and the moon will be ever present, and it will follow us, constant companion, on our pilgrimage. Good Friday will come the next day, followed by the stillness of Holy Saturday. On the third day will come Easter Sunday. All of it, a most strange week, when you really think about it.

OPEN SHOP DAY!
We’re planning to open the shop this Saturday (Holy Saturday) from 11 to 4, for your last chance to pick up Easter goods like traditional wooden bunnies from Germany’s Erzgebirge woodworkers, beautiful pysanky eggs from Ukraine, German splintwood baskets and wood wool Easter grass (none of the plastic stuff!), German papier mache eggs to fill with treats, and as far as the sweets in your basket, how about sweet and sour Swedish candies, licorice (some chocolate covered) and fruitful gummies from Denmark, and marzipan piglets from Germany? CLICK HERE to shop, and come on by this Saturday, please!

Image: “Christ on the Mount of Olives” by Paul Gauguin. Oil on canvas, 1889 [Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons]. This is one of my favorite paintings, set on the night of Maundy Thursday, and it resides locally, here at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. I need to go see it again soon.

Feb 17 2026

6 Comments

Ash Wednesday, Carnevale, Chinese New Year, Lent, Ramadan, Shrove Tuesday

A Pilgrim in this World

It’s Tuesday, February 17. This year, it is a day of celebration across many traditions and across vast expanses of this old earth. Chinese Lunar New Year begins today: it is the year of the Fire Horse. Ramadan is expected to begin this evening, if the new moon is seen in the sky, and it is expected to make its appearance tonight. And in this house, it is Shrove Tuesday: the final day of the Carnival Season: Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday: it is the night we have pancakes for supper. Tomorrow, when we rise, it will be Ash Wednesday. The Lenten Season will have begun: forty days of reflection and of abstaining, best we can, from excess. But that is not today. Shrove Tuesday is the day we use up all the provisions in the larder that we traditionally would not consume during the Lenten fast.

From the time when I was a boy, Lent meant no meat on Fridays, which, let’s face it, is not much to give up. In earlier times, though, the restrictions on food during Lent were quite extensive, and not just on Fridays, but all the days of Lent: no eggs, no meat, no lard, no milk, no cheese, no sugar… not much of anything truly enjoyable. Beans and pulses and vegetables and fish were acceptable, but not much else was on the table this time of year.

Sacrifice is not something we often think of, especially in this day and age, when we can find pretty much anything we want, whenever we want it. Fresh cherries in February? No problem, they’ve been flown here to your local supermarket from Argentina’s warm summer days. A slice of cheesecake from a bakery in New York flown overnight to you in Albuquerque? Also no problem. There’s no real need to eat seasonally, if you don’t want to, and if you’ve got the do-re-mi, you can get anything your heart desires delivered to your doorstep. The value of Lent, though, is that restraint is encouraged, and this idea that perhaps we should not have anything we want, whenever we want it, is, perhaps, a worthy quality, and one we should be mindful of at least every now and then. This is Lent. Lent is that reminder to be mindful.

It is also a good reminder to be kind, and respectful, and compassionate, because Lent is also a good reminder that we each are dust and to dust we shall return. Each of us. You and me in our comfortable houses. The kid who lives under the overpass. The immigrant trying to make it here and send a few bucks to the family back in the old country. The ones who get deported. The childish, disrespectful, grifting power-hungry blowhard in the White House. I don’t like calling people names, but come on: I can’t think of anyone I’d least like to be trapped in an elevator with. We all are dust and to dust we shall return. In the space between, why not just be kind and compassionate and honest and respectful to the other pilgrims in this world? As Father Seamus would recite, from memory, standing before the congregation, fingers grasping the sleeves of his vestments:

Lord, I believe in you: increase my faith.
I trust in you: strengthen my trust.
I love you: let me love you more and more.
I am sorry for my sins: deepen my sorrow.

I worship you as my first beginning,
I long for you as my last end,
I praise you as my constant helper,
And call on you as my loving protector.

I want to do what you ask of me:
In the way you ask,
For as long as you ask,
Because you ask it.

Let me love you, my Lord and my God,
And see myself as I really am:
A pilgrim in this world,
A Christian called to respect and love
All whose lives I touch.

This, to me, sums things up nicely. It is a good blueprint for a firm foundation, a good roadmap for our journey, whether we are Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist or Pagan or Agnostic or any thing we are. Change the words and make it right for you: Let me see myself as I really am: A pilgrim in this world, called to respect and love all whose lives I touch.

Anyway, I will think of these things tonight as we light the candles at our table and sit down to pancakes for our supper. And I will think of all of you, and wish only good things for you. We are all the same. We are all dust and to dust we shall return. That dust, mind you, came from the stars. It is some brilliant stuff.

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N.B.: The original Convivio Book of Days calendar for February 2026 mistakenly placed the start of Ramadan at February 28… which, of course, was the date of the start of Ramadan in 2025. I’m still having trouble remembering it’s 2026. I’ve since updated the February calendar with the correct date for the start of Ramadan. Click here for that corrected calendar.

Image: Cosmic dust in our Milky Way Galaxy, as photographed by NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This cosmic dust is a concentration of elements that are responsible for the formation of stars in our galaxy and throughout the universe. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

THIS WEEKEND at the SHOP
It’s Street Painting Festival time here in Lake Worth! If you’re coming to Lake Worth Beach for the event this Saturday and Sunday, why not make a little detour on your way in or out of town to come visit us at Convivio Bookworks? We’ll be open on Saturday, February 21, from 11 AM to 4 PM, and on Sunday, February 22, from 1 to 4 PM. We’ll be serving homemade Italian sweet treats and our own Löfbergs Swedish Coffee while you shop. Earlier on Sunday, we’ll be teaching a Convivio Cookery workshop: Come learn something new (and get your dinner ready while you’re at it) at our Mambricoli Pasta Making workshop on Sunday from 11 AM to 1 PM. So delicious and so easy! CLICK HERE for details and registration and to see what else is new at our Workshops page. And come see us at the Midnight Sun Festival! We’ll have a pop-up shop there on Friday, February 27, Saturday, February 28, and Sunday, March 1. This festival celebrating Finnish and Scandinavian culture is held annually at Bryant Park, on the Lake Worth Lagoon in Downtown Lake Worth Beach.

Apr 01 2025

6 Comments

All Fools' Day, Book of Days Calendar, Easter, Holy Week, Independent Bookstore Day, Lent

Springtide, and Your April Book of Days

April First now and here is your printable Convivio Book of Days calendar for the month. Cover star this time around: a rainy Easter Eve (in Paris, is my guess), painted in 1907 by John Sloan. We just reached Midlent this past Sunday, or Laetare Sunday, which means we are halfway through our Lenten journey, on the road to Easter, which this year comes on April 20. These are all movable days in the calendar, based on the timing of the full moon that follows the Vernal Equinox. I’ve never quite had the wherewithal to sit down and learn the calculations that determine the date each year of Easter. All I know is Lent began late this year and, following course, Easter comes late, too. I like when things are late, as I don’t feel so rushed.

Today, of course, is the First of April, which brings All Fools’ Day, and that is not a movable holiday. The origins of the day’s shenanigans are tough to pin down. Most signs point to the fact that March 25 was once New Year’s Day, making the First of April the Octave of New Year and the end of the new year revels, and it is thought that perhaps the foolishness of the date goes back to very old new year customs. The tricks and practical jokes traditionally end at noon, but not everyone understands this and so I think it’s a good day to remain generally wary and on guard.

April also brings Passover this year, and all the days of Holy Week that lead us to Easter, including one of my favorite nights of the year: Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, when we visit three churches to sit in the close and holy darkness, together with other pilgrims doing the same. It is always such a lovely night: candle-lit, peaceful, a night when you can hear each old church’s creaks and groans. Our niece comes with us now on this pilgrimage, and I don’t even know if she realizes we do this each year because my grandma, Assunta, taught me to do it when I was a boy, the same age as my niece is now.

April also brings a springtime excuse to drink eggnog with San Jacinto’s Day on the 21st, and romantic divination a few nights later, on St. Mark’s Eve, and then comes Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday April 26. I’m generally not one for these newfangled holidays, but this one has new meaning for Convivio Bookworks now that we fancy ourselves a bit of an independent bookshop. We’ll be making a weekend-long celebration of it at the shop, where you may come print on our 1950s Nolan Tabletop Press and learn how to make your own book, too. Walpurgis Night wraps up the month, as the night of April 30 drifts into the morning of May the First, and May Day, an unoffocial first day of summer.

If you live in the South Florida area, please consider joining us at the shop for any of these upcoming events pictured below. The workshops require advance registration. Our Springtide Saturdays are perfect days to gather what you need for Easter. And Independent Bookstore Days are just going to be a whole lot of fun as we celebrate these things we love so much: books and reading. Click on any of the images to make them larger for easier reading, and find more details by visiting our Convivio Bookworks catalog pages. The shop is easy to find but off the beaten path at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, in Lake Worth Beach, Florida 33460.