According to the definition established by the Council of Nicaea in 325, Easter is celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon of spring: “Easter is the Sunday following the 14th day of the Moon which reaches that age on or immediately after March 21. » The spring equinox being March 21, Easter therefore takes place no earlier than March 22 and no later than April 25. In 2024, it is March 31.
Easter Sunday ends Holy Week which began with Palm Sunday. Holy Week is, for Christians, the week before Easter and the last part of Lent.
At the roots of Easter
The Christian festival of Easter finds its origins in the Jewish Passover, that is to say the passage of the Red Sea by the Hebrew people, while they were pursued by the army of Pharaoh. Etymologically, the word Passover means “passage”.
For Christians, Easter symbolizes the passage from death to life. The addition of an “s” at the end of Easter makes it possible to differentiate the Jewish Passover from the Christian Passover and to evoke the events of the three days preceding Easter: the last meal of Jesus or the Last Supper (Holy Thursday); his arrest, his conviction and his death or Passion (Good Friday); then his Resurrection, on Easter Day.
Easter night or Easter Vigil
On the night of Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday, the Church celebrates the Easter Vigil. This begins at nightfall on Saturday and ends before dawn on Sunday. Catholics celebrate the passage from darkness to light, Christ’s victory over death. This is why, during the night, the fire and the Paschal candle are lit, then the flame is transmitted to the faithful.
During this Easter Vigil, adult baptisms are celebrated and the faithful renew the promises of their baptism.
Eggs, bells, Easter lamb: where do these symbols come from?
Church bells are silent from Maundy Thursday in the evening to the night of Saturday to Easter Sunday, as a sign of mourning. They chime again to announce the resurrection. In Catholic countries, tradition dictates that they return from Rome to distribute eggs. In northern European countries and Germany, rabbits bring eggs.
Eggs, very ancient symbols of fertility and life, have been used in Christian iconography, since the early Middle Ages, as an image of resurrection. In the 19th century, the custom of making chocolate eggs and offering them at Easter was born after forty days of deprivation.
Eating lamb at Easter is rooted in the history of God’s people. In the Old Testament, before crossing the Red Sea, the Hebrew people had marked the lintel of the doors with the blood of a lamb to signal that these houses should be spared from the death of the firstborn, which should not strike than the Egyptians because Pharaoh refused to allow the Hebrew people to leave Egypt.
In the New Testament, the lamb symbolizes Jesus sacrificed, it is “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.