Ancient tradition gives new life to Altar of Repose

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Sprouted grain adorns the Altar of Repose in St. Ambrose Parish’s Vaughan Center library.

SALT LAKE CITY — An ancient Lenten tradition has brought lessons of new life to the J.E. Cosgriff Memorial School/St. Ambrose Parish community.

In southern Italy, there is the tradition of simple altars being decorated with grain that was sown during the third week of Lent and put in a dark place to grow. The plant that sprouts from the grain is pale because it has not been exposed to sunlight. Once it is placed on the altar on Holy Thursday, it turns green, symbolizing life born in darkness and the Resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday.

Cosgriff students implemented this tradition this year for the parish’s Altar of Repose,  a temporary altar where the Communion hosts consecrated on Holy Thursday during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper were placed for use on Good Friday. The parish’s Altar of Repose is located in the Vaughan Center’s library.

“You don’t feel very holy in reverence in a library with windows, and there’s a projector and all this stuff,” said Tiffany Wharton, a parishioner who helps with the church’s flower arrangements.

So, Wharton, who has Italian roots, came up with the idea to help.

“Why couldn’t the parish revive the [Altar of Repose] tradition here in Utah and include the students at J.E. Cosgriff Catholic School?” Wharton thought.

“I really wanted to be able to do something where the church and school did something together,” she said, so she approached J.E. Cosgriff’s religion teacher, Brittany Barnes, who was enthused about the plan.

“I thought it was a beautiful project,” Barnes said. “It showed the growth we can have in Lent and the rising of our [Lord] during that time at the Resurrection and that once we come out of the darkness, we have this great growth.”

To prepare them for the project Wharton gave a slideshow presentation to the school’s eighth-grade students, who became excited about the project. They in turn shared the presentation with the entire student body, who agreed to participate, along with the parish’s religious education classes.

Three weeks into Lent the students planted the grain in pots. Over the following weeks they watered and cared for it, watching as the sprouts came up white and yellow.

“The younger kids really enjoyed watching them grow because it’s just amazing that they grow in the dark,” Wharton said, adding that students tend not believe that plants, like people, can grow in the dark without light.

On Holy Thursday, after the altar was set up, the students came in groups to see it over the course of two hours. Once exposed to the light, the grain began to change colors.

“The class that came very first, by 10 or 11 o’clock, the green had already started going an emerald green, and they were just amazed that it does change that quick from being in the sunlight,” Wharton said.

The project has enriched the students’ spiritual life and that of the parish, Wharton said.

To see and do an aesthetic ministry at a church adds “a tangible element to your spirituality and faith,” Wharton said. “And it I think, also, it’s very simple. When you can see something tangible, and then relate to it, it helps with those things that are a little bit harder to comprehend spiritually.”

Wharton hopes to plant the seeds from the grain in the coming weeks and to use it to continue the tradition with Cosgriff students next year.