Easter comes early this year
March 21, 2008
This year, Roman Catholic Easter falls on March 23, the earliest the holiday has been celebrated in 95 years. An earlier Easter will not occur until 2285.
Each year, the date for celebrating Easter is decided based a solar calendar. The vernal or spring equinox, the moment of time when the sun is directly above the earth’s equator, occurred March 20 this year. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring. This means Easter can fall anywhere between March 21 and April 25.
Although the day for celebrating Easter varies from year to year, its meaning and significance are as constant as the North Star. Victor Ludlow, a professor of ancient scripture at BYU, offers insight on Easter’s true significance. “Without Easter and what it represents, Christianity would just be another do-good and feel-good monotheistic religion that found its ancient origins in the Near East,” he said.
The term Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Eostre, the name of the goddess of spring. Under ancient tradition, sacrifices were offered to Eostre at the vernal equinox. Modern Christianity currently uses her name to reverence the most important sacrifice ever made for practicing Christians. “Easter is the fulfillment of the covenant promise that God made to Adam and his posterity,” Ludlow said.
According to The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, the day Easter is celebrated has been a controversial issue. Early Jewish Christians based their observance of Easter on the beginning of the Hebrew festival of Passover. On the other hand, Gentile Christians tended to celebrate Easter on a Sunday to reinforce the idea of Christ’s resurrection. As time passed and the debate cooled down, the majority of Christians chose to celebrate Christ’s resurrection the first day of the week.
Further resolution of Easter’s day was resolved in A.D. 325 at the Council of Nicea. The council unanimously decided to establish the celebration of Christ’s resurrection to a Sunday. The specific Sunday was not established until the seventh century when the majority of Christian churches became reasonably uniform.
Upcoming Easters >
2008 - March 23
2009 - April 12
2010 - April 4
2011 - April 24
2012 - April 8
2013 - March 31
2014 - April 20
2015 - April 5
2016 - March 27
2017 - April 16
2018 - April 1
2019 - April 21
2020 - April 12
Source: calendardate.com
Crucifixions mark annual Philippines Easter ritual
March 21, 2008
Devout Roman Catholic Ruben Enaje donned a crown of thorns as he put himself through the agonising ordeal of being nailed to a cross for the 22nd time.
The 47-year-old decorator was the first of 19 men in this northern Philippines village Friday who underwent the gruesome Easter crucifixion ritual, an extreme form of penance by devotees wanting to thank God for answering their prayers. On the one occasion he skipped it eight years ago, he said, he was struck down with stomach ulcers and his wife was taken ill.
“It is painful and difficult. But I will continue doing this for as long as I can. This is my pledge to God,” the father of four told AFP as he prepared his ceremonial garb at his modest wooden home.
Thousands of tourists braved the tropical heat Friday to flock to this poor farming community about an hour’s drive north of Manila to witness the religious rites. The re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is part of a bloody annual spectacle that shocks outsiders in this devoutly Roman Catholic nation.
Neighbours costumed like Roman centurions dragged Enaje and the other penitents through the village streets and toward a barren hill where three wooden crosses and a large crowd of at least 2,000 tourists awaited. He screamed in agony as seven-inch (18-centimetre) metal nails were driven into both palms and feet while lying spread-eagled over the cross. The wooden contraption was stood for about five minutes before it was hauled down again and the nails pulled out. The process was repeated for the other volunteers.
Hours ahead of the ceremony, scores of other local men whipped themselves bloody with strips of bamboo attached to strings to atone for their sins. The dominant Roman Catholic Church frowns on these extreme practices and the health department has warned the penitents to take anti-tetanus shots first and to sterilise their equipment. “The church does not recommend it because the church is against self-flagellation” said Father Norman Vitug, the local parish priest. “Of course when we express our faith to the Lord the Church does not want us to hurt ourselves for us to experience the Love of God.
“But we cannot question somebody’s faith. It’s just an expression of their faith. We do not lead their lives so we do not know what happens to them while experiencing that, so we might as well respect it,” the priest added.
The crucifixions are organised by the village council, with help from the national government’s tourism department, said village official Leonard David. The order of the crucifixions were done “according to seniority” with Enaje first because he had done it the most in the past, David added.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque said that as it was hard to discourage “flagellants from whipping their own flesh, the best penitents can do is ensure that their whips are well-maintained. “We are not trying to go against the Lenten tradition here because whipping has somewhat already become some form of ‘atonement for sins’ for some of us,” Duque said. “But this advice is important to make sure that no one will land in the hospital due to tetanus or other infections that penitents might get in the process.”
Christian pilgrims mark Good Friday in Holy City
March 21, 2008
Psalms and incense filled the air of the Holy City of Jerusalem on what is known as Good Friday, as thousands of Christian pilgrims from around the world prayed along the traditional route Jesus took to his crucifixion.
The faithful, several of them bearing large wooden crosses, walked in procession along the cobblestoned streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, following the Via Dolorosa, or Way of Suffering, where Jesus is said to have carried the cross on which he was later crucified by the Romans.
As the pilgrims intoned their psalms, their voices mingled across the stone facades of the Old City with the Muslim call to Friday prayers broadcast from numerous minarets. Incense filled the Holy City’s narrow streets, where the Good Friday worshippers crossed paths with Muslim faithful, prayer rugs slung over their shoulders. The procession set off under bright sunshine outside the Monastery of Flagellation, where Jesus was beaten, mocked and crowned with thorns. It concluded at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is built over the sites where many Christians believe Christ was both crucified and buried.
The route trodden by the pilgrims is based on a devotional walk first laid out by the Roman Catholic Church’s Franciscan order in the 14th century. The Christian Gospels teach that on the third day after he was crucified, Jesus rose from the dead. That event is commemorated by Easter, the most important day of the church year to most Christians.
Catholics and other Christians in the west celebrate Easter on a different date each year than do Orthodox Christians. This year’s March 23 date in the West is one of the earliest days in the calendar that the feast is celebrated. Orthodox Easter will be on April 27.
As the faithful arrived at the Holy Sepulcher church, representatives from two Muslim families that have kept keys to it since the 13th century opened its doors to them. Michel Sabbah, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, arrived in the church a little before the procession, to celebrate his last Good Friday mass as leader of Roman Catholics in the Holy Land, after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75 this week.
Police deployed reinforcements to prevent any incidents in the Old City, which Israel annexed along with the rest of Arab east Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Middle East war. Farid Dueibess, an Arab Christian who lives in the Old City, said several of his relatives were unable to travel to Jerusalem for the procession because Israeli authorities sealed off the occupied West Bank during the Jewish holiday of Purim that started at sundown on Thursday.
Old City merchants did a thriving business selling souvenirs and religious trinkets, a welcome respite after violence in the region hurt tourism in recent years.
