La santa Pasqua, or holy Easter, in Italy and among Italian Americans, remains firmly rooted in special, ancient traditions commemorating Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. While our country’s secularized observance of Easter is unimpressively reduced to bunnies and Cadbury eggs, celebrations in our Patria or fatherland, and wherever our immigrants have settled and we descendants live, are rich in faith and deep meaning.

The late Giacomo Cardinal Biffi, Archbishop of Bologna, has been quoted as saying that if the (Catholic) faith is separated from Italian culture, all that would be left is a plate of spaghetti. The joys of Easter, expressed in such tangible ways, are preceded by the solemnity and seriousness of the whole of Quaresima, or Lent, and especially the culmination of the emotional crescendo that is Holy Week, la Settimana Santa.