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AnaB
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Hi! We have been celebrating Passover for 4 years now and we have been soo enriched by it. We usually borrow a ceramic Seder plate from my mom, but this year, for my dh's birthday, I"d like to purchase our own set. I was thinking silver plated so that it would blend in with any other dishes. I've been all over the internet and it seems like the grape-themed set I've been searching for is being discontinued.
Do you all celebrate Passover? Where did you get your set (Seder plate, matzah plate, and kiddush cup) if you have one and why do you like it?
Thanks so much!
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His By Grace, AnaB blessed WIFE to Jeff and mama to 4 blessings!
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momwise
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Wow AnaB....we've been celebrating Passover with a Catholic Seder meal for about 4-5 years now and I didn't know there was a special plate 
Are there any guidelines or traditional designs that you know of besides the grapes?
I wonder if any of the wonderful Jewish-Catholic converts like Roslyn Moss have any advice in any of their books (the other author escapes me....Meredith something? )? Maybe Jenn should pop in here!
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Gwen...wife for 30 years, mom of 7, grandma of 3.....
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JennGM
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momwise wrote:
| I wonder if any of the wonderful Jewish-Catholic converts like Roslyn Moss have any advice in any of their books (the other author escapes me....Meredith something? )? Maybe Jenn should pop in here! |
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My ears are burning... Our family has always loosely followed a seder meal tradition, so the years we tried an "official" seder, the family balked. So we just have a special plate we use, nothing like prescribed by Jewish tradition. Our meal followed more of The Passover Meal by Arlene Hynes.
The author is Meredith Gould, and Gwen, I'm so glad you asked. This is an area I need to "bulk-up."
I started looking. Her book The Catholic Home doesn't have anything, but she has a self-published book Come to the Table: A Catholic Passover Seder for Holy Week which looks fabulous! I think some of my birthday money goes to buying that!
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Kathryn UK
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Ana, we are a Catholic-Jewish family (myself and kids Catholic, dh Jewish) and I'm ashamed to say we have never got round to getting a Seder plate, even though we do a Seder meal every year. We have a kiddush cup and matzoh cloth inherited from dh's parents, but all the Seder items just get put on a tray. You have given me an idea for a birthday present for dh 
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ShawnaB
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I just placed an order for a Seder Plate at the Jews for Jesus site. This organization has a lot of very nice resources for incorporating Christ into the Passover celebration.
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Shawna, wife of Jacob, mom to Abraham 8 Amelia 5 and Jillian & Jonathan age 3 years http://www.psalm121family.com
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kingvozzo
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I'm very interested to hear what you all do for this celebration. It's a custom I've heard of, but haven't known anyone who did. At our last parish in TX, our deacon had passed along some information about how Catholics could appropriately participate in a Seder, and mentioned a document from USCCB from the 1980's. I haven't been able to find that document.
Do you just have certain aspects of the meal, or do you have a full Seder?
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momwise
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Thanks for that suggestion Shawna! Noreen, we do a modified Seder meal taken from Lent and Easter in the Domestic Church. It's a Catholic version and I have no idea how it compares to a full Jewish Passover Seder. You can see it here.
I'm planning to buy the Meredith Gould book to learn more about it. It is one of my family's most favorite religious celebrations.
A question: Those who celebrate Passover, do you have your Seder meal on Holy Thursday or Passover?
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Gwen...wife for 30 years, mom of 7, grandma of 3.....
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momwise wrote:
| A question: Those who celebrate Passover, do you have your Seder meal on Holy Thursday or Passover? |
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Right now, my extended family gets together to celebrate our seder meal, so usually we have 6 couples and and 10 children. We want the fathers to be there, so we have the meal sometime before Holy Thursday, maybe Palm Sunday. We usually attend Mass on Holy Thursday and to fit in the dinner and rush to Mass isn't ideal.
Seder Meal in our Family. This is a basic idea of what we do in our family. The feet washing is a big part of this... Like I said before, we don't do an "authentic" seder.
Here are some "Christianized" versions of a Passover Meal:
Women for Faith and Family Seder Meal. This is also found in their Lent and Easter Sourcebook
Maundy Thursday and the Passover Meal by Florence Berger
Holy Thursday in the Home with the Trapp Family
The Passover Meal by Arlene Hynes. Follow the subsequent links (numbered) in the left hand column or read in entirety here.
The Seder Meal as a Christian Home Celebration: Preparing and Celebrating the Holy Thursday Meal
Holy Thursday Activities in the Home
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Kathryn UK
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I confess I have huge difficulties with the idea of a "Christianised" Seder like the one suggested by Domestic Church. It seems to me to be a mish-mash of religious syncretism. I know my husband and his relatives would be greatly offended by it, seeing it as taking a cornerstone of their tradition and twisting it to fit our religion - in much the same way that we would be offended by a Muslim celebrating some kind of "Eucharist" and adding references to Mohammed (I know that sounds strong, but it really is how they would feel). Judaism is a living religion, and most of the traditions included in the Seder meal were not introduced until hundreds of years after the time of Jesus. The Seder today has the same purpose as the meal celebrated by Our Lord at the last supper, but the form is very different. To take a modern -style Jewish Seder and Christianise it makes no sense to me.
Of course, we share the same Old Testament tradition, and having a Jewish-style Seder meal in remembrence of the Passover (as Christ did) is something else again. I don't have any difficulty with that. And certainly it has a special meaning for us in that we can see clearly where it was headed ... the deliverance of the Israelites celebrated in a Seder is a forerunner of Christ's deliverance, celebrated in the Eucharist. However, we don't need to turn the Seder into a Christian Passover feast ... we already have one - the Easter Vigil
"This is our passover feast,
when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,
whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers."
(Exultet)
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AnaB
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I can't speak for domestic church--I've never seen or used their website, but we started celebrating Seder after visiting a Jews fo Jesus type of Seder meal. The Passover is the heritage of EVERY Christian. It has been SUCH an enriching time for our family. We have grown so much closer to each other and to the Lord and our appreciation for the Scriptures and the God who wrote them has been blown out of the water.
Throughout the WHOLE Bible, the Lord has had a plan. Our wonderful God has written a "love story" of sorts, a story of Redemption. In it He has given clues as to the culmination (the coming of His Son to die for us) from the very beginning. All the prophecies, even some of the characters like Abraham and Joseph and David, and the feasts all point to Christ. The Passover meal is all about Christ. It is so rich. It is just amazing.
Christ is represented as the Passover lamb who's blood now covers us, He is represented in the Matza--it is pierced, striped and without leaven, it is hidden (the middle of three compartments) in a linen cloth, and it is found again--whole story of the resurrection, He is represented in the wine, He is represented in the candles--He is the Light of the world, He is represented in the washing--it is He who washes our sins away, He is represented in the bitter herbs--all that He endured, He is represented in the salty tears, He is represented in the charoseth--He makes the bitter sweet. Do you realize that at the exact hour Jesus died, the priests in the temple were slaying the Passover Lambs? The shofar was sounding. It was so incredible. I wish this would have been included in the Passion movie, but that's beside the point.
Yes, some Jewish people have missed it. They have celebrated all these things blinded to Christ in them. BUT some have not. There is nothing like celebrating this meal with a Messianic Jew. As Christians we have every right to celebrate this wonderful holiday. Christians are the children of Abraham. The Bible says that the children of Abraham were those that had the FAITH of Abraham. That would be us! That would not be Esau, when you look at it in the big picture.
I do have a real tenderness and burden for the Jewish people. I don't know what the Lord will do with that. I want them to see it all too and when they do it's simply breath-taking. They are the people of my Savior. They, as much as everyone else, must be reached with the Gospel.
I have a book called A Family Guide To the Biblical Holidays and another one called Walk With Y'shua Through the Jewish Year. This is what we have used to help us celebrate our Seder meal. I think there's nothing but blessing in celebrating it. We aren't to the letter, some years we've celebrated it on THurs. and others on Fri. There's still yeast in the house (at least in the freezer). We're doing the best we can. THankfully we are now under grace and not the law--our salvation doesn't depend on our perfection, but Christ's! So, we celebrate this with freedom, with deep reverence and awe, and most of all JOY!!
Why have to think of all these ways to spiritualize or make more spiritual this season when God already provided the means in His Word through His feasts??? Why reinvent the wheel? THese feasts are a 5-sense experience perfect for children (which is the whole purpose of the feasts--for the parents to teach their children their faith), and they are perfect for EVERY learning style. Did you ever really stop to think about that? God is so wise and humorous. We now have all these "books" and "crafts" and eggs, and decorations, when His feasts have it all and His blessing!
I wish I could say that we celebrate every feast, but for the ones we have been able to celebrate, it's been the children's favorite thing we've done.
I hope this is encouraging to those who have the courage and extra energy to pursue this wonderful celebration this year. It's really not that complicated. It might be great to attend a Seder meal as a family, especially the ones by Jews for Jesus. Their perspective is so enriching.
Many Blessings to you!
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His By Grace, AnaB blessed WIFE to Jeff and mama to 4 blessings!
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AnaB
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OOH! I forgot one symbol. Christ is not only the lamb that was slain, but He's our priest who atones for us! Just remembered that. I'm sure there's lots more. Each year I come away with something new.
Be blessed!
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JennGM
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Kathryn UK wrote:
| I confess I have huge difficulties with the idea of a "Christianised" Seder like the one suggested by Domestic Church. It seems to me to be a mish-mash of religious syncretism. I know my husband and his relatives would be greatly offended by it, seeing it as taking a cornerstone of their tradition and twisting it to fit our religion - in much the same way that we would be offended by a Muslim celebrating some kind of "Eucharist" and adding references to Mohammed (I know that sounds strong, but it really is how they would feel). Judaism is a living religion, and most of the traditions included in the Seder meal were not introduced until hundreds of years after the time of Jesus. The Seder today has the same purpose as the meal celebrated by Our Lord at the last supper, but the form is very different. To take a modern -style Jewish Seder and Christianise it makes no sense to me. |
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I see your points, Kathryn.
Our family never tried to use the prayers from the Seder meal. We took the Old Testament Exodus story and the Last Supper and added some symbolic food to enhance the meal combined with readings from the O.T. and N.T. I view our "Passover Meal" as walking in Christ's steps through Holy Week, at the Last Supper.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Kathryn UK
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Ana, I know I'm coming at this from a very different perspective from you, in that I am married to a Jew who practices his religion and does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah. I have big problems with Jews for Jesus. They are a fundamentalist Protestant organisation who use aggressive methods of proselytising highly offensive to the great majority of Jews. Their methods have been criticised by the Catholic Church, and their syncretistic approach to Christianity and Judaism is not, in my understanding, compatible with Catholicism. From my own experience, it took many years of being treated with respect by Catholics in general and Catholic priests in particular for my husband to lose the intense distrust of Christianity he felt as a result of the actions of Jews for Jesus.
While it is certainly possible to read Christian symbolism into aspects of the Passover meal, it is still taking it out of context. Celebrating the Passover, or as Jenn suggests having a meal that recalls the Last Supper, are very different. As Catholics we already have the ultimate Christian Passover feast in the Easter Vigil.
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AnaB
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I can see your position, Kathryn. Thank you for sharing your experience. I would never encourage any wife to do anything to disrespect her husband, but instead to encourage reverent behaviour in wives and silent lips! (IPeter 3).
I didn't mean in any way to get into all this, I was merely trying to see what types of plates people use for their Seder meal, not to discuss the validity of the celebration in the Christian home. A later desire was to encourage anyone considering celebrating the Passover in their homes with our experience which has been nothing but blessing and joy.
When we celebrate it, we have even used a Jewish Haggadah. The only part we do different is to discuss how Jesus is the fulfillment of the symbols. To me, as seen in Scripture, this is the point of the celebration. But I am not Catholic--I don't know how that affects my perspective.
I do enjoy these forums very much, though I may do things a little differently than most here. But we do all share a love and devotion to the Lord and for that I"m most grateful to have found a place to learn, grow, learn about CM, and to share in honest, real communication that is edifying and helps me point myself and my family to the Lord. (Sorry for the run-on).
On another note, (the pupose of my post in the first place), I did find a silver-plated set for sale at a wonderful price. I guess the maker is discontinuing them for now, but I was able to find one that didn't sell on Ebay. I'm so excited for dh! It's so wonderful to find a birthday present for our dhs that you know will be very meaningful to them. I'll let you all know how it goes!
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Kathryn UK
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AnaB wrote:
| I didn't mean in any way to get into all this, I was merely trying to see what types of plates people use for their Seder meal, not to discuss the validity of the celebration in the Christian home. |
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I'm sorry Ana, I didn't mean to hijack your question  . It is just a sensitive area for me because of my husband is who he is. We have had to tackle issues like this head on in order to ensure that we are each able to maintain our religious integrity within an inter-faith marriage. Not easy, but we are proof that it can be done  . I'm definitely not saying that Christians shouldn't celebrate a Seder, but the one set out on the Domestic Church site really grated on me!
I'm very glad you feel at home here, and I hope I haven't put you off sharing with us .
My dh really liked the idea of a Seder plate, but we couldn't find one we liked at a reasonable price online in the UK, and shipping from the US was prohibitive  . Maybe next year.
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Kathryn
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AnaB
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Oh Kathryn,
You're in a tough spot which requires extra sensitivity. I'm sorry for not seeing that right away. I can understand your feelings. I'm so glad the Lord has blessed your marriage and it's working. What a testimony to your children! It's a testimony to me too, who even though I am married to a husband of the same faith, it still at times feels like we're from different planets!! How we need God's grace in our marriages!
About the Seder plates, you're right they get very expensive. The set I found was $45!!! That's for the Seder plate, Matzah plate, and a kiddush cup and saucer. Shipping was $8. I thought that was pretty good compared to everything I saw. Keep an eye out at ebay.
Oh, I really enjoy your blog too!
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His By Grace, AnaB blessed WIFE to Jeff and mama to 4 blessings!
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Kathryn UK
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Ebay UK had all of two Seder plates, neither of which we liked . What Michael would like is something similar to this this but ceramic, not made of tin. We found one plate in the US we quite liked, but the shipping was over $100! Were they thinking of flying it by private jet?
I hope our marriage is a good testimony to our children. Michael has been very generous in not just allowing them to be brought up as practicing Catholics, but actively encouraging it (he even takes my younger dd to her First Communion classes). I try to support him by making it as easy as possible to get to synagogue, by celebrating the Jewish festivals at home, and by keeping at least a semi-kosher home - this all takes a certain amount of effort as we live in an area with a very small Jewish population. We both try to give our children a real appreciation of their Jewish heritage. I think they are very lucky to grow up celebrating both the Christian and Jewish year. They think they are lucky to get both Christmas and Hannukah presents  .
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Kathryn
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momwise
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Great food for thought everyone  Jenn, Meredith's book is on my *must* buy list!
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Gwen...wife for 30 years, mom of 7, grandma of 3.....
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JennGM
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Kathryn UK wrote:
| I confess I have huge difficulties with the idea of a "Christianised" Seder like the one suggested by Domestic Church. It seems to me to be a mish-mash of religious syncretism. I know my husband and his relatives would be greatly offended by it, seeing it as taking a cornerstone of their tradition and twisting it to fit our religion - in much the same way that we would be offended by a Muslim celebrating some kind of "Eucharist" and adding references to Mohammed (I know that sounds strong, but it really is how they would feel). Judaism is a living religion, and most of the traditions included in the Seder meal were not introduced until hundreds of years after the time of Jesus. The Seder today has the same purpose as the meal celebrated by Our Lord at the last supper, but the form is very different. To take a modern -style Jewish Seder and Christianise it makes no sense to me. |
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Kathryn,
I just want to thank again for writing this. You have given me so much food for thought here. I didn't realize the Seder meal traditions follow centuries later. I wrote somewhere else my family always balked if we tried to implement "authentic Jewish" touches in our Seder...the cry would be "But we aren't Jewish." I'm now seeing how right they are.
The point of the living religion also really hit home. We would be up in arms and yelling sacrilege and blasphemy if someone "Hinduized" our Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
But is it okay in your opinion to celebrate an authentic Seder? I know many people have been moved spiritually by being a part of these beautiful Judaic ceremony.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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momwise
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JennGM wrote:
| The point of the living religion also really hit home. We would be up in arms and yelling sacrilege and blasphemy if someone "Hinduized" our Holy Sacrifice of the Mass |
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I also appreciate Kathryn's perspective. Apparantly Meredith's book touches on these issues too. However, as a Jewish Christian/Catholic convert, it seems like she has different view. Here is an excerpt from the book. As the excerpt says, Jews and Christians share one Holy Day in Passover and Holy Thursday. In fact isn't the Mass in fact a memorial of the Last Supper: the Passover?
I can see where the difficulites arise, but I don't think it's comparable to Hindus changing the Mass. I'm really looking forward to this book!
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Gwen...wife for 30 years, mom of 7, grandma of 3.....
"If you want equal justice for all and true freedom and lasting peace, then America, defend life." JPII
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: Passover Sets?
