Celebrate Easter At St. Benedict’s

The original name of the Festival was one which also included Good Friday, ‘Paschæ’(Πάσχα), which was derived from the Aramaic form of the Hebrew name for Passover. This name was also retained in the Latin: and in the time of Leo the Great, when the distinction began to be made of the Pascha Dominicæ Passionis, and the Pascha Dominicæ Resurrectionis, Dies Paschæ began to be understood chiefly, and soon alone, of Easter. In England the same name was also once familiar, perhaps derived from the French language, and Easter eggs are still called “pasque” [or in a corrupt form “paste”] eggs all over the North of England. The more familiar name of Easter is, however, traceable as far back as the time of the Venerable Bede, who derives it from the name of a pagan goddess Eostre, or Ostera, whose festival happened about the time of the vernal equinox [De ratione Temporum, xiii.], and was observed as a time of general sacrifices, with a view to a good harvest. Later, and perhaps more trustworthy, philologists have derived the word from the old Teutonic urstan, to rise, and urstand, the Resurrection: and it is significant that the idea of sunrise is self-evident in the English name of the festival on which the Sun of Righteousness arose from the darkness of the grave. The popular name for the day among Oriental Christians is Λαμπρά, the Bright Day, in which the same idea is to be observed. In old English Calendars Easter is called “the uprising of oure Lord,” and “the Agenrysing of our Lord.” In the Western Church the festival was always kept on the first day of the week, as being the actual day which our Lord had consecrated by His Resurrection.