For my fellow Catholics out there, you may be wondering why Easter is so incredibly early this year. The folks over at FOXNews.com had a great article about this topic posted today. What it comes down to is…the moon!
Pretty weird, huh? From the article:
Easter always comes on the Sunday after the first, or Paschal, full moon following the first day of spring.
Spring arrives on Thursday and the moon will be full on Friday, the earliest Paschal moon since 1913. And that means Easter, the Christian holiday marking the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is this Sunday. It won’t come this early again for another 220 or so years.
This is a mundane bit of news to some, but to others this can be a fascinating look at the history of the Catholic Church. As many theologians will tell you, there are little pieces of other religions that were integrated into Roman Catholicism at the Council of Nicaea. One of the common traditions of many religions at the time was to use the lunar cycle to provide dates for their feast days (for example, the stars were used to date some Jewish and Pagan feast days at the time). It would appear that the Council took some of this mindset and applied it to setting the date for Easter.
Pretty interesting stuff. Maybe we can all discuss it again in 2228 – the next time Easter will be this early in the year!
I received this in an email and thought I would share.
Do you realize how early Easter is this year? As you may know, Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.
Found out a couple of things you might be interested in! Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) but that is pretty rare.
Here’s the interesting info. This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Here’s the facts:
1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).
2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!
They stole my information! Ha ha ha!
I looked at some site online and Easter comes some 3 weeks later next year (when it SHOULD come).
2228, I’ll mark it on my calendar.