From one hot cross bun to another

I have just washed nine mugs—in the dishwasher—plus a sundry collection of plates, glasses and the odd dish, all built up over a few days of living lazily alone.

That has been my life and I am looking ahead to a much longer time of living alone, with my youngest daughter now engaged and a wedding on the cards sometime in the future.

That has caused me to sit back and reminisce a little before looking ahead to some attempts at pearls of wisdom for other family people.

What is the point, then, of the hot cross buns? These ever popular buns are no longer eaten only on Good Friday, but for many of us are a significant part of the Holy Week and Easter season.

They are not part of my Dutch family background and I really encountered them only when I joined the Rowland family in the early 1960s, having met my future husband Chris in the parish church choir.

For more than 50 years Easter has meant time spent in church at the various Easter ceremonies. As a member of different choirs over the years it meant singing or playing at some of my favourite ceremonies —and of course hot cross buns on Good Friday for tea. When we married it became hot cross buns for breakfast (for some in bed, it being a day of fast and abstinence).

For the next few years there were babies on board, and as our little family continued to grow, it was hot cross buns for breakfast, buttered and toasted under the grill. As we rejoined the choir the small people sat, played or slept under the bench in the choirloft, or sat with Nan and Grandad. Seen from a distance, they were remarkably good. After this we would be off to their house for the traditional hot cross buns.

The family grew, tastes developed and some preferred them microwaved with melted butter. Over the years too we discovered that food fundis held competitions as to the best-tasting, most spicy, richest-in-fruit buns.

So time went by, the family continued to grow; over the years they gradually left home and buns would be left over, to dry out and still be eaten by a can’t-waste-food mom, or they would stay in the freezer for a month or more.

Afternoon tea with the grandfolks continued until they passed on. In time there were just three of us left, eating buns for breakfast and afternoon tea.  When Chris died, there were just two of us, and the tradition just wasn’t quite the same, as mom and daughter wouldn’t necessarily both be there at the same time doing the same things.

Will this year’s hot cross buns have been the last in company? From now on, am I to eat them alone? Six in a pack is a lot. Should I find someone to share with, join a commune or just become a hermit? There are times in one’s life when all these options are considered.

But work keeps me going for the present. Developing the May focus on Family Life has been time-consuming, on top of other family-promoting activities, writing, workshops and talks.

The Family Desk at the bishops’ conference was delegated to take on the task and I highlighted aspects that may not normally be part of Church life.

May is Mary’s month. There is also Vocations Sunday. How often in commemorating the feast of St Joseph the Worker, on May 1, do we not only honour him but use the opportunity to reflect on the topic of work and how important its impact is on family life?

Mother’s Day may be a commercial gimmick, but it does give us an opportunity to focus on the gift, the blessing and the responsibility of motherhood in family life. It also highlights the fact that women are the ones who have abortions, who deny themselves or are denied the fullness of motherhood, for whatever reason.

UN International Day for Families on May 15 was a significant one too. Not nearly enough attention is paid in Church and society to the importance of families and the need to build up and strengthen family life for its own good and that of society.

Pope John Paul II in the commemorative issue of The Southern Cross is credited with many good things, but there is no mention of all the things he did and said about family life. Familiaris Consortio and his Theology of the Body teachings surely are crucial to respond to his oft repeated exhortation: “The future of the Church and of society is through the family.”

I concur and am sure will continue to do so next year and thereafter, even while I eat my hot cross buns alone.

For more on the May family focus and the daily prayer for families—which incidentally need not end when the month is over—visit www.marfam.org.za.blog.