Easter Week in Croatia and in Our Home!

Happy Easter!! This is the biggest week in Croatia (and personally in my own heart and mind) and I wanted to show you a little bit of what it’s been like here…

In Croatia, Palm Sunday is translated as Flower Sunday. There is an old tradition to soak flowers in water and wash your face in the morning with it to symbolize new life and spring. We went to Flower Sunday service in our village’s beautiful old church a few doors up – it was packed. I grew up having palm branches at church that day but the tradition here is to bring olive branches to be blessed – Croatian Catholics believe the olive branches then protect your home for the rest of the year. We also watched a lot of our neighbors walking home from Easter Sunday service with baskets of ham – they take it to be blessed! Flower Sunday starts Veliki tjedan (Big Week) – a time to be quiet and in prayer – ending on Easter Sunday with a huge family meal.

There were Passion concerts throughout the old city and Cam and I went to one in Saint Catherine’s Church the night of Palm Sunday. It was a piece of heaven listening to Bach played by the strings and the beautiful voices from the choir echo in that stunning church. We sat in the back holding hands, totally in awe.

I love the tradition here of hanging hand-painted eggs. You can see them hanging from trees in cafes and restaurants and peoples’ homes. John Shea broke our first set, so I bought more at the market at the equivalent of $1 a piece!

The Croatian Naive Art painted eggs in front of the Cathedral. We love Croatia for many reasons, but it’s an especially beautiful thing to be living in a country where not only can we freely worship Christ, but where His resurrection is so highly celebrated!

Palm Sunday Easter egg hunt at our Ambassador’s house.

(Her sweet dress! and their matching headband and bow tie)

We hid a bunch of eggs for him on Easter but all he wanted to do was water the garden….

I hope you had a joyous Easter! He is risen!!