Celebrating Catholic Feast Days with Celiac

The Catholic liturgical calendar is full of feast days with food traditions. Easter bread, Christmas cookies, St. Joseph’s Day pastries. When those traditions involve gluten, how do you celebrate?

The Intersection of Faith and Food

Food and faith have always been connected:

• Feast days meant actual feasting
• Fasting and abstinence shaped the year
• Specific foods marked specific occasions
• Food was part of how Catholics celebrated

Celiac complicates this. But it doesn’t end it.

Principles for Celebration

The Feast Is Not the Food

Remember what you’re celebrating:

• Easter: the Resurrection
• Christmas: the Incarnation
• Saints’ days: holy lives

The food commemorates. It’s not the point.

New Traditions Can Honor Old Meanings

Your GF celebration can be just as meaningful:

• Different food, same intention
• New recipes that become your traditions
• Adaptation, not abandonment

The Community Matters More

Gathering with others to celebrate matters more than whether the bread is GF.

Major Feast Day Adaptations

Easter

Traditional: Easter bread, hot cross buns, lamb cake

GF adaptations:

• GF Easter bread recipes exist (search “gluten free Easter bread”)
• Make GF hot cross buns
• Lamb cake can be made GF (it’s just a shaped cake)
• Focus on the egg dishes and lamb (naturally GF)

Focus on: The Resurrection, the Vigil liturgy, the end of Lenten fasting

Christmas

Traditional: Christmas cookies, fruitcake, bread

GF adaptations:

• GF Christmas cookies are very achievable
• GF gingerbread houses
• Focus on roast meats, vegetables, potatoes (naturally GF)
• GF stuffing for the turkey

Focus on: The Incarnation, Midnight Mass, gathering with family

St. Joseph’s Day (March 19)

Traditional: St. Joseph’s altar with breads and pastries

GF adaptations:

• Make GF versions of traditional pastries
• Contribute fruit or other naturally GF items to altars
• Focus on the charitable aspect (feeding the poor)

St. Patrick’s Day

Traditional: Soda bread, corned beef and cabbage

GF adaptations:

• Corned beef and cabbage is naturally GF
• GF soda bread recipes exist
• Focus on the Irish heritage, not just the bread

Fat Tuesday / Mardi Gras

Traditional: King cake, paczki, pancakes

GF adaptations:

• GF King cake is possible
• GF pancakes
• Focus on the feasting before Lent

Thanksgiving (American)

Traditional: Turkey with stuffing, rolls, pie

GF adaptations:

• Turkey is naturally GF
• GF stuffing (using GF bread)
• GF rolls or cornbread
• GF pie crusts

This one adapts relatively easily.

Creating Your Own Traditions

GF Feast Foods

Develop your own feast day specialties:

• A specific GF cake for Easter
• Christmas cookies that become your signature
• Birthday traditions that work for you

These become your traditions.

Non-Food Traditions

Add or emphasize non-food celebrations:

• Special liturgical devotions
• Family activities
• Decorations and symbols
• Service and charity
• Music and art

Food doesn’t have to be the center.

Sharing What You Can

Even if you can’t share the traditional bread, you can contribute:

• Naturally GF dishes to gatherings
• GF versions of traditional foods
• The labor of celebration

When You Can’t Eat What Others Eat

At Parish Celebrations

If the parish has feast day food:

• Bring your own version
• Eat what you can (fruit, naturally GF items)
• Focus on the community, not the food
• Don’t make it a bigger deal than necessary

At Family Celebrations

If family has traditional foods you can’t eat:

• Bring your own GF version
• Eat what’s safe from their spread
• Remember the gathering matters

The Emotional Weight

It’s genuinely sad to miss traditional foods:

• Acknowledge the loss
• Feel the grief if you need to
• Then find another way to celebrate

A Liturgical Year for Celiacs

Advent

Preparation: GF Christmas cookies and treats Focus: Waiting, preparation, Mary

Christmas Season

Celebration: Safe feast foods Focus: Joy, incarnation, family

Lent

Simplicity: May actually be easier, fewer rich foods to navigate Focus: Prayer, fasting (in ways that work for you), almsgiving

Easter Triduum and Season

Culmination: GF Easter bread, lamb, celebration Focus: Paschal mystery, resurrection, joy

Ordinary Time

Daily faithfulness: Just regular GF living Focus: Growth, saints’ days, daily discipleship

A Prayer for Feast Days

Lord, I can’t eat what my ancestors ate on this feast.

But I can celebrate what they celebrated. I can honor what they honored. I can worship as they worshiped.

Help me find new traditions that carry old meanings. Help me feast in spirit when I can’t feast in food.

Let this day be holy, whether or not I can eat the traditional bread.

Amen.

The Heart of Celebration

The early Christians celebrated without any of our traditional foods. They had Eucharist, community, and joy.

You have Eucharist (in a form you can receive), community, and joy.

The food traditions are beautiful, but they’re not essential. What’s essential is the faith they express.

Express it your way. Celebrate fully. Let the feast be feast, even if the menu looks different.