Catholic Activity: Easter Lamb

Your symbolic Easter centerpiece can be a lamb cake or a lamb piñata or a butter lamb. Besides the recipes we have in our resources for lamb cakes, there are numerous recipes available on the Internet and in books in print such as A Continual Feast by Evelyn Vitz, printed by Ignatius Press.

DIRECTIONS

Just as we raise the cross resplendent before our children's eyes as a Standard of Victory — Christ's victory over death and our victory over the "old man sin" — so, too, at Easter we give them their Pasch, the victorious Easter lamb as a reward for fasting. For the older children, we explain the closeness between the lamb and their baptism, using the words from the Easter Liturgy: "These are the newborn lambs who proclaim: Alleluia. But a short time ago they came to the baptismal font; now they are filled with brightness."

Our Easter lamb is baked in cake mold and covered with white icing and cocoanut to represent wool. It has raisin eyes and a cherry mouth. The lamb sits on a bed of evergreens, surrounded by golden eggs, to make the setting festive. American Home, March 1956, page 22, carries a pattern for making a curly lamb Piñata, or grab bag, to be filled with Easter candy and cookies. (Piñatas are used by Mexican children on great feast days.)

The lamb Piñata requires only paper, glue and a cardboard frame. It may hang from the ceiling, Mexican style, or it may be placed on an end table in front of the fireplace. In any case it is a symbol, easy to assemble, to be filled with small gifts in honor of the Lamb of God on His Resurrection Day. Woman's Home Companion, April 1956, carries a pattern for a butter lamb for an Easter centerpiece. [Editor's Note: You can buy a butter lamb mold in many Slovak or Ukrainian or Polish gift shops. Here are several locations: Slovak Shop and Polish Art Center and you can search for a local distributor on the Kellers Creamery site.

Activity Source: Family Customs: Easter to Pentecost by Helen McLoughlin, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1956