Retrospect on the Easter celebration

The Easter Celebration, according to the practices of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and its followers, had been and still is one that would be remembered with mixed emotions. For the past and present generations of the elderly, the feast has much to do with religious overtone.
The present generation of the elderly adheres to the letter of the Bible, particularly, the New Testament, in fulfilling the Divine practices as best as could be. Then, for the elderly, the Easter feast is an expression of religious devotion, and purity of mind, dedication of body and soul to the teachings, the sufferance, and then to the glory of Jesus Christ in the land of his Divine mother, before and after his crucifixion.
The purpose of this short article is not to demonstrate knowledge of the Bible, as I claim no competence in this respect, but only to find out what it would mean to the young generation that is born into and prevailing in the realm of the present elderly generation and to the one beyond.
The elderly generation until its passing which will not be, of course, very long, celebrates Easter religiously and with a touch of tradition. The religious aspect ends when lent is concluded with prayers and devotion and liturgy that goes through the night in the churches at Easter eve with impressive religious rites in total sublimation and dignified religious practices, when only the beginning of the feast is heralded by gun shots linking the present to its origin, the rise of Jesus from the Tomb where he was in two nights earlier.
The traditional aspect is the one that is connected with the manifestation of the feast itself. The hustle and bustle of the cattle, sheep/goats and poultry as well as the grass markets, the crowdedness of the supermarkets and groceries, and the traffic jam, just to buy the necessary commodities for celebrating the feast at the eve of Easter Sunday are very much attached to the traditional approach of the ceremony, as it is true with other Ethiopian religious festivals.
Some members of the house hold go out to buy live poultry, fresh grass and scented plants to while on the eve chickens, sheep or goats are bought, Oxen are slaughtered by groups for “kircha” (meet allotment) on Sunday morning to prepare for raw meat—Oh, delicious and mouth watering!
So for the elderly generation, absence of these essential commodities and the traditional pomp and ceremony, in one form or another would spell destitution. It is true, on the other hand, among those young elements, which I prefer to term as the new elite or the young generation born into the present elderly generation, much of the religious and traditional approaches of the old style mentioned here-above, have a good sign of continuity at least for sometime to come. But would these religious and traditional practices in their original form, continue definitely?
The answer could be both yes and no. Yes, because it would be a gross-error to ignore the appreciative faculty of the new generation to values and ways of life of the generation it is born into. There are a good number of youth that give respect and reverence to the practices of the elderly, whom in fact, they love to follow.
It may yet be’no’ because the ways of life, complexity of modernity, high cost of living, life styles, and the meaning of the values accepted by the elderly will be somewhat different from the rising aspiration of the new generation. Hence, it will be in conflict with the changing attitude of the new generation.
Therefore, while there will be a chance for the continuation of religious practice in both camps for a good many years to come, the traditional part will be discontinued gradually, as there will not obviously be the daring to carry live poultry to the ninth or tenth floor of the future domicile of this young generation.