Trinidad Pesqueira
English 101 Professor Pilla
Lent

Growing up Catholic, I have always been a part of various holidays my complicated religion celebrates. Every holiday my big Mexican family usually gets together, but during a season called lent it is when we celebrate together the most. Although, I do not fully understand the significance of lent. Ever since I was a little boy I can remember everyone always something talking about the semana santa, or in English, Holy Week. I was always very curious as to why my family made it such a big deal. Lent consists of forty days of giving up something you do a lot, but isn’t something you “have” to do. It’s usually giving up things like chocolate, soda, or even using your cell phone. It’s a season that is supposed to represent the forty days of prayer that Jesus went through giving up everything and also bring you closer to God. When I was little I use to hear my family always saying that they were giving something up for lent, so at around age eight I started giving things up as well. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I actually went the whole forty days without a refreshing soda and those crunchy chips. Not until I was older did I realize the true meaning of lent. I remember during lent, we would never eat meat on Fridays and go to church every Sunday, especially the big masses like the burning of the palms, Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. I didn’t really like the whole not eating meat part about the season. Why Holy Week, on the other hand, I always looked forward to it more than the rest of the season. Both my parents were born in Mexico and that is where the majority of my family lives, so during Holy Week, usually the Thursday before Easter we would leave to Hermosillo, Mexico. When we would get to Mexico, as far back as I can remember, there were always elaborate decorated shrines everywhere, more than usual, during Holy Week. At night there were always ceremonies with prayer going on at churches or at the shrines people put out. The ceremonies were always filled with glistening lights from all the candles they used. I remember feeling confused as to why people were doing this and when I asked my mom, she would always tell me that they were just praying to God. Since Holy Week is such a big deal down in Mexico, almost all of my family from the United States would make the trip down for the festivities. It was a reason for all of us to get together since we really didn’t get together on other holidays. I remember being so excited to go to Mexico, especially for Good Friday. Good Friday is the last day of the season that we cannot have meat, so my family always gets a variety of different seafood and cooks it numerous ways. Just talking about the food we have down there makes my mouth water. We have things like ceviche that has a very zesty smell and taste to it. We also always have this soup called caguamanta, which is basically just like a fishy seafood soup with all sorts of