Spring holy days

(March 23, 2013) Easter and Passover, both movable spring holidays, occur this week this year. The method for determining the dates is complex, based on lunisolar calendars. Even though it seems as if winter is still here, the holidays follow the vernal equinox, the start of spring, which was March 20.

The Christian Holy Week begins tomorrow, Palm Sunday, March 24, and ends on Holy Saturday, which falls on March 30, the day before Easter Sunday, March 31. Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Sunday. The chronology of his death and resurrection is variously interpreted to be between AD 26 and 36, traditionally 33.

The Easter celebration comes after Lent, a 40-day preparatory period of fasting, prayer and penance. The last week, Holy Week, begins with Palm Sunday remembering Christ's triumphal entrance into Jerusalem and continues with Holy Thursday honoring the Last Supper (his last Passover seder), Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death, and Easter Vigil Saturday, a commemoration of the day that Jesus lay in his tomb. Easter Sunday is a joyous celebration of church song and family feasting.

Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar.

Passover 2013 begins at sundown on Monday, March 25. That is the date, this year, which corresponds to the 15th of Nissan, the day according to the Bible, on which the first Passover occurred and on which all subsequent Passovers always begin. The holiday lasts for seven days in Israel and eight days everywhere else, reflecting a long-held custom honoring the fact that maintaining an accurate liturgical calendar far from Israel, where Jewish religious authority was centered in ancient times, was not so simple.  The longer observance is designed to make sure nobody fails to observe the holiday on the appropriate day.

It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt. Families celebrate at a ceremonial meal called a seder featuring symbolic foods (unleavened bread, bitter herbs, a mixture of apples and nuts, roasted egg, parsley or celery, roasted lamb shank and wine) and reading of the Haggadah which tells the Exodus story.

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