Between the months of March and April Holy Week is celebrated and for many it is a time of liturgy. Easter also takes place, which we are going to talk about next, because there are many curiosities that will surely surprise you about this celebration. Do you want to know more about What is Easter and why is it celebrated? Keep reading.
Although for many during the Holy Week it is when is the true easter celebrated the truth is that this lasts for more than a month and was formerly considered a great “holiday Sunday”.
More on Ash Wednesday:
What is Easter
The Easter season and according to the Universal “rules” of the Liturgical Year, number 22 is made up of a total of 57 days which in Greek translates as “Pentecost” and which must be celebrated as a single holiday. These fifty days are mediated between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday.
What is celebrated on Easter
Easter begins with a vigil and is celebrated for seven weeks until Pentecost and is the passage of Christ from death to life, to his definitive and glorious existence.
It has to be said that Easter is celebrated both among the Jewish and Christian people, although the truth is that for both it is celebrated in a different way.
jewish passover
The Jewish Passover was before Christ an agricultural festival that the shepherds celebrated and in which a lamb was sacrificed to ask for fertility. After Christ it becomes a festival celebrating the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt.
At Passover the Jews celebrated -and still celebrate- the “passage” (Passover) of the Red Sea of the Hebrew people towards liberation from slavery.
The Christian Easter
The christian easter celebrates not only the life of Jesus Christ) but also the passage of this from death to life is celebrated. Easter for Christian believers is the time of resurrection of christ and his rise to eternal life.
On the other hand we have to talk about another type of Easter, and that is related to Germanic roots that adapts the rituals of Christian Easter in a pagan way.
Learn more about history and religious beliefs:
non-liturgical Easter
In the Germanic area, as in other regions of the world, evangelization could not completely uproot the most important celebrations of these peoples. There used to be a party in honor of Eostre, Germanic pagan goddess of spring and light. It was a festival of the spring equinox, March 21, celebrating the end of cold and darkness and the return to life after the harsh winter.
As for the symbols of Easter, we have to mention the eggs, which are a symbol of fertility, although we must add that it was never accepted as a symbol by Orthodox Christians, which indicates that it is truly an icon alien to religious Easter.
Surely more than once you have heard that someone congratulates you on Easter at Christmas. So, but aren’t we talking about Easter being in Holy Week? They were? We tell you.
Historians tell us that Easter refers to the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery to which he was subjected by Egypt. Around the 13th century BC, Moses frees the Jewish people and this is what would be celebrated, according to the Hebrew calendar, more or less around these spring dates.
The etymologists do not agree either, but mostly they think that the word can allude to the end of the fasting time after Lent is over.
The fact that happy Easter is also wished at Christmas is possibly due to a parallelism that we have sought with the Christ’s resurrection and birth. So that after dying one is born again and, after Holy Week and death, we wait for the coming of the Child Jesus, it is because we have compared one festival to the other, since both are a hymn to joy: birth and resurrection (return to life, death does not exist).
Although it is less well known, it is also due to the fact that the liberation of the Jewish people is referred to as an event worthy of joy and celebration. They are, therefore, three moments of great significance for Christianity that are combined into one to celebrate: the freedom of the Jews, the resurrection and the birth of Jesus.
But this mistaking of Easter for Christmas and Easter is not something modern, but comes from centuries ago and specifically from the Middle Ages. Starting with the Age, Christmas Easter is taken into account and, subsequently, the arrival of the next Easter on the calendar, that of the death and resurrection of the Lord, is expected. Two great holidays for Christianity.
So you know, both at Christmas and in spring, we can congratulate Easter and it is not uncommon that on more than one occasion, they congratulate us. And in both cases, it is well said.
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