The Easter Period

The penitential season of Lent is a season of the Church year which commemorates the forty days Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness before he began his public ministry. From dust to new life we begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday. It is always the Wednesday of the seventh week before Easter, and its name comes from the ceremonial putting of ashes on the foreheads of Christian worshippers and starts the period of fasting. Although fasting usually refers to any practice of restricting food, there is a distinction, in the Church, between fasting (limiting food to one full meal a day, with two smaller meals allowed) and abstinence (abstaining from eating meat.) Abstinence from meat one day a week is a universal act of penitence.

Maundy Thursday, also called Holy Thursday, is a service to commemorate Jesus' Last Supper and the beginning of our sacrament, the Lord's Supper. The word Maundy comes from the Latin mandatum, which means "commandment." At the Last Supper, Jesus gave the disciples a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them (John 13:34). Prior to breaking the bread with the disciples, Jesus washed their feet. Maundy Thursday worship services include Holy Communion and sometimes foot washing as well.

The word "tenebrae" comes from the Latin meaning "darkness." In this dramatic service on Good Friday, all of the lights and candles on the altar are gradually extinguished until the room is in complete darkness. At the moment of darkness, a loud noise occurs symbolizing the death of Jesus.

 

The source of our term for “Good Friday” (the Friday before Easter), is not clear. It may be a corruption of the English phrase "God's Friday," according to Professor Laurence Hull Stookey in Calendar: Christ's Time for the Church (p. 96). It is a day that proclaims God's purpose of loving and redeeming the world through the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is a day that is good because God was drawing the world to God's self in Christ. We call it "good" because we look backward at the crucifixion through the lens of Easter!

Why is Easter on a different day each year?
In 325 AD, the Council of Nicea set the date for the celebration of Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, March 21. For this reason, the date will change each year and can fall anywhere from March 22 to April 25.

What is the symbolism of the Easter Lily?
The white lily stands for purity. It has traditionally been used in Christian art connected to Mary, the mother of Jesus. She has often been pictured with the angel Gabriel and Gabriel is coming to her with a spray of lilies in his hand to announce that she will be the mother of the Messiah. It is also a sign of the Resurrection. It, like other flowers that come from bulbs seemingly dies away then returns with new life each year. Because they are white, they signify the pure new life that comes through the Resurrection of Jesus.

On the Easter bunny and Easter eggs: As with almost all "Christian" holidays, Easter has been secularized and commercialized. The nature of Easter and its symbols, however, is not necessarily a modern fabrication. Since its conception as a holy celebration in the second century, Easter has had its non-religious side. In fact, Easter was originally a pagan festival.

Eggs, like rabbits and hares, are fertility symbols of extreme antiquity; since birds lay eggs and rabbits and hares give birth (to large litters) in the early spring, these became symbols of the rising fertility of the earth at the vernal Equinox (the two days each year when the center of the Sun spends an equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on Earth).

The Easter egg predates the Christian holiday of Easter. From the earliest times, the egg was a symbol of rebirth in most cultures. Eggs were often wrapped in gold leaf or, if you were a peasant, colored brightly by boiling them with the leaves or petals of certain flowers.

The act of eating colored eggs at the Spring Equinox can be considered a form of sympathetic magic or prayer for increased fertility, and for a bountiful harvest later in the year. Missionaries notice that these “pagan” festivals occurred the same time Christians celebrated the death and reselection of Jesus and “converted” these celebrations to Christian practices.