Date of Celebration : Western - March 23, 2008 // Eastern - April 27, 2008
Easter is the
first holiday of spring and symbolizes the reawakening of the
earth after a long winter. The origins of many of our Easter
traditions date back to pagan times and the rituals associated
with the coming of spring. A number of popular customs are
observed during the Easter season. The majority of Christians
follows some of these customs. Others are observed in a
particular area or by a particular group. It is therefore a time
of fun and celebration.
Easter eggs are a very old tradition going to a time before
Christianity. Eggs are a good symbol of Spring and new life.
Before they were replaced by chocolate Easter eggs real eggs
were used. These would be decorated with bright paints. The
Easter bunny is almost certainly an Easter hare. The hare was a
symbol of the ancient Moon goddess and of Eostre. Sadly hare
hunting used to be a common pastime at Easter. The Easter bunny
fills Easter baskets for children with Easter candy. This custom
began in Germany and then came to America. The story was that if
children were good, the Easter rabbit would lay colored eggs in
a nest. Children would use caps and bonnets for "nests." In the
north of England, for example as at Preston in Lancashire, there
is the custom of egg rolling. Hard boiled eggs are rolled down
slopes to see whose egg goes furthest. In other places a game
similar to conkers is played. You hold an egg in the palm of the
hand and bang against your opponent's egg. The loser is the one
whose egg breaks first. Another popular game is hunting eggs
which have been hidden around the garden.
Candles are burned during many Easter celebrations. Many churches
extinguish candles on Good Friday to show that Jesus' light has gone
out. In Roman Catholic churches, the special paschal candle is lit on
Easter Sunday, representing Jesus' return to life. Some churches have a,
Easter service at sunrise. Easter bells are rung in France and Italy
throughout the year but not on the Thursday before good Friday. They are
silent as way to remember the death of Jesus. Then they are rung on
Easter Sunday as way of telling people Jesus is alive. Easter Sunday is
a feast day. An Eastern European custom is to have the Easter feast
blessed by a priest. The priest goes to the home, or families may take
their food to church for the blessing. According to popular belief,
those who ate before the food was blessed, were punished by God,
sometimes instantaneously. Many people serve lamb as part of the Easter
feast or dinner. In many homes, a lamb-shaped cake decorates the table
and one of the oldest Good Friday customs is eating hot cross buns,
small, sweet buns with a frosting cross. Easter Lilies are used to
decorate churches and homes. On the eve of Easter the homes are blessed
in memory of the passing of the angel in Egypt and the signing of the
door-posts with the blood of the paschal lamb. The parish priest visits
the houses of his parish; the papal apartments are also blessed on this
day. The room, however, in which the pope is found by the visiting
cardinal is blessed by the pontiff himself.
In many parts of Europe, huge bonfires are lighted on hilltops and in
churchyards on Easter Eve. Carnivals provide opportunities for feasting
and merrymaking before the solemn fast days of Lent. The word carnival
comes from the Latin word carnelevarium, which means removal of meat.
The most famous carnival is the Mardi Gras, celebrated on Shrove
Tuesday, the day before Lent begins. Mardi Gras is a French term that
means Fat Tuesday. It refers to the fat ox that traditionally led a
procession on Shrove Tuesday in France. Carnivals often feature parades
in which people wear elaborate costumes. The best-known Mardi Gras
parade in North America takes place in New Orleans. Wearing new clothes
for Easter is a custom common among many Christians. It may have
originated from the old practice of having newly baptized Christians
wear new white clothes for the Easter celebration. Like many other
Easter symbols, the new clothes represent the new life offered through
the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Easter promenades of people in new
clothes are a tradition in many European towns and villages. A person
holding a cross or an Easter candle leads some of these promenades. In
New York City, thousands of people stroll in the Easter Parade down
Fifth Avenue to show off their new clothes following Easter services.
Easter is a traditional time for performing Pace Egg plays. These plays
are very similar to the Mumming plays which are performed at Christmas.
Passion Plays dramatize the Easter story. Such plays have been performed
during the Easter season since the Middle Ages. The most famous one is
usually presented every 10 years in Oberammergau, in southern Germany.
It dates from 1634. In the United States, Passion Plays are performed
annually in several cities. Morris dancing is a traditional English form
of folk dance which is also performed in other English-speaking
countries such as the USA and Australia. The roots of morris dancing
seem to be very old, probably dating back to the Middle Ages. The name
suggests that it may have come from the Moors.
Many communities follow customs of the Easter season that are special to
them. In Bethlehem, Pa., for example, a trombone choir of the Moravian
Church plays hymns throughout the city before dawn on Easter Sunday to
call church members to a sunrise service in the old Moravian cemetery.
At the cemetery, the trombones play a joyful chorus as the sun appears
on the horizon. On Easter Monday the women had a right to strike their
husbands, on Tuesday the men struck their wives, as in December the
servants scolded their masters. Husbands and wives did this "ut
ostendant sese mutuo debere corrigere, ne illo tempore alter ab altero
thori debitum exigat" (Beleth, I, c. cxx; Durandus, I, c. vi, 86). In
the northern parts of England the men parade the streets on Easter
Sunday and claim the privilege of lifting every woman three times from
the ground, receiving in payment a kiss or a silver sixpence. The same
is done by the women to the men on the next day. In the Neumark
(Germany) on Easter Day the men servants whip the maid servants with
switches; on Monday the maids whip the men. They secure their release
with Easter eggs. These customs are probably of pre-Christian origin.
In France handball playing was one of the Easter amusements, found also
in Germany. The ball may represent the sun, which is believed to take
three leaps in rising on Easter morning. Bishops, priests, and monks,
after the strict discipline of Lent, used to play ball during Easter
week. This was called 'Libertas Decembrica', because formerly in
December, the masters used to play ball with their servants, maids, and
shepherds. The ball game was connected with a dance, in which even
bishops and abbots took part. At Auxerre, Besancon, etc. the dance was
performed in church to the strains of the "Victimae Paschali". In
England, also, the game of ball was a favourite Easter sport in which
the municipal corporation engaged with due parade and dignity. And at
Bury St. Edmunds, within recent years, the game was kept up with great
spirit by twelve old women. After the game and the dance a banquet was
given, during which a homily on the feast was read. All these customs
disappeared for obvious reasons.
The strange custom of Risus Paschalis, originated in Bavaria in the
fifteenth century. The priest inserted in his sermon funny stories which
would cause his hearers to laugh (Ostermärlein), e.g. a description of
how the devil tries to keep the doors of hell locked against the
descending Christ. Then the speaker would draw the moral from the story.
This Easter laughter, giving rise to grave abuses of the word of God,
was prohibited by Clement X (1670-1676) and in the eighteenth century by
Maximilian III and the bishops of Bavaria (Wagner, De Risu Paschali,
Königsberg, 1705; Linsemeier, Predigt in Deutschland, Munich, 1886).
