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By Ann Savino

    In the earliest days of Christianity, Easter was celebrated at the same time as the Jewish Passover. There was a reason for this. The last days of Christ's life on earth were spent observing the Passover. He was crucified on Passover Day and rose from the dead the following Sunday. Because of this, His followers began to observe Sunday as the Lord's Day instead of the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday.

    The word Easter was borrowed from the Teutonic festival of the Spring sun, Eostre. Christ's resurrection occurred in the spring. This was the season of new birth, an awakening in nature when all the earth sprang to new life. It was the death of winter and the birth of spring. The promise to mankind of new life through Jesus Christ, has its counterpart in the spring season of rebirth in nature with the green plants growing and flowers blooming. From the earliest times in history, people have worshipped the sun and celebrations have existed since the beginning of time that have celebrated spring, or the sun's return after a long, dark winter. After the resurrection of Christ, this event was given new meaning when the risen Christ became the center of the Easter festival.

    In several European languages the name for Easter shows the influence of the Jewish Passover, Pesach. In Italian it is Pasqua, in Spanish it is Pascua and in French, Paques.

    Lights played an important part in the church celebrations of Easter Eve. After the darkness and despair of Good Friday and the solemn anticipation of Holy Saturday, the people were happy to share in the sudden illumination of Easter Eve. Homes, after having been darkened, were made bright with all the lights the house possessed, and every church was illuminated with hundreds of candles. People on the streets carried their lighted tapers. Christ was the light of the world and He was honored with every kind of light the people could produce. Fires were kindled on the hilltops that could be seen for miles around. Most representative was the great Paschal candle that was lit in every church. People would light their candles from this one and carry their candles home to light their homes.

    In the time of the Puritans, all holidays were frowned upon as being too worldly. The celebration of Christmas had become so far different from the reverent observance it was intended to be that the Puritans of England made it unlawful to celebrate it at all. Then in 1643, the British Parliament struck Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide from the calendar.

    When the Puritans came to America and settled in New England, they brought with them the customs and beliefs of the old country. Easter was ignored, even by the churches. The exceptions to this were the states of Louisiana and Maryland where Catholics had settled. Gradually, Easter became important again and has been widely observed in the past 50 or 60 years.

    Easter is a holy day which differs from all others because it is preceded by a preparation time of 40 days. Forty days represents a complete soul cycle or a time in which you can replace old patterns and establish new ones. This time during the Easter season is known as Lent. The name is believed to have come from the word Lengten-tid, Anglo-Saxon for springtime. Lengten-tid meant a "lengthening time" or a time when the days were growing longer. The period of Lent does not include Sundays but begins on Ash Wednesday and ends with Holy Saturday. Lent is a time of fasting, set aside by the Christian church in memory of the 40 days of fasting by Christ before His crucifixion.

    In years gone by it was the custom not only to give up meat during Lent, but also to avoid all foods containing fats. Therefore, the people tried to use up all the fats that were left on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins. Shrove Tuesday was a day set aside many, many years ago by the early Roman church for everyone to go to church and confess his sins. The old English word for confess was shrive. The people who made confession were "shrove." The day thus became known as Shrove Tuesday. Cakes, pancakes, fritters and all kinds of fried treats were the custom to eat on this day. They were using the fat they were not going to eat for the next 40 days.

    In France, the Tuesday before Lent is known as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. Carnivals are popular before Lent in almost all European countries. They began many years ago when very strict fasts were kept during Lent by the people. Knowing that a forty-day fast lay ahead, on the day before it was going to start people wanted to feast and have a party. The carnivals were always attended by crowds of people wearing masks and costumes. This is an ancient custom dating back to a holiday in ancient Rome. In a few countries, the carnivals of Shrovetide still keep some of the characteristics of the old Roman festival. In the Austrian Alps, there is a Dance of the Phantoms where for hundreds of years, this strange dance composed entirely of men, has depicted the struggle between winter and spring. In parts of Germany where a similar performance takes place, an effigy of winter is burned. Then spring is welcomed into the village with joyous music and merrymaking.

    At the beginning of the sixth century, Pope Gregory I set the time for the start of Lent as Ash Wednesday. At the time of the early history of the Christian church, the Lenten period was set aside as a time of penitence and fasting. Ash Wednesday was held to be particularly solemn, when the people grieved over the magnitude of their sins. For thousands of years ashes were the symbol of penitence and mourning. Ash Wednesday gets its name from the ceremony performed in all Catholic churches where the mark of the cross is made with blessed ashes on the foreheads of church members. The ashes used in this ceremony have been saved from the previous year's palms of Palm Sunday.

    In the countries of Austria, Germany and Poland, there was always one food that made its appearance on Ash Wednesday. This was the pretzel. Pretzel is the German contraction for the Latin word meaning "little arms." This baked dough was made to take the place of bread because milk, eggs and fats were forbidden during Lent. The pretzel was first created by bakers back in the fifth century A.D. The dough was made of flour, salt and water and twisted in such a way to represent two arms crossed in the act of prayer.

    Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Easter. It commemorates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem because people took branches of palm trees and greeted Him when he entered the city. Palm Sunday ushers in Holy Week. In Slavic countries and in Austria, farmers and their families carry the blessed palms or willows in a procession through the fields. They sing hymns and leave a bit of the palm to bring blessings to the crops and animals.

    Good Friday is the most solemn of all religious holy days. It is the day that Jesus was crucified. There are many traditional beliefs concerning Good Friday among the peoples of the world. Some farmers consider it the best day of the year to sow fields for Christ was laid in the earth that day. The farmers of Bulgaria believe that if they sprinkle ashes around the chicken yards on Good Friday, the eggs will be plentiful all year. In Czechoslovakia after the Good Friday service is over, the people in the church run through the aisles "to chase out Judas." An observance of Good Friday that has lasted through the years is the custom of eating hot cross buns. These buns, with a cross marked on the top crust, are eaten during Lent. Originally they were made to be eaten on Good Friday only and were made in the form of an unleavened bread. Gradually they became the sweet raised buns we know with raisins and frosting on top. People believed that eating the buns on Good Friday would bring good luck. There was a superstition that hot cross buns would never grow moldy.

    Holy Saturday is the day before Easter. It is a time for waiting for the Resurrection. It has been called the "Night of Illumination" because the Paschal candles were lit this night. In addition to blessing of the lights, it was an ancient custom to bless the waters on Easter Eve. This ritual is preserved in modern times with the blessing of the Font that takes place in Catholic churches on Holy Saturday. In certain places in Europe, ponds, lakes and streams are blessed by the priest.

    All this leads to Easter day itself which is the day that Christ rose from the dead. In England, it was considered bad luck to appear on Easter Sunday wearing anything other than new clothes. This custom began in earliest Christian times when the people dressed in new whites gowns for their baptismal ceremony which took place on Easter. There are many customs and rituals that abound. One unusual one is from Florence, Italy where a beautiful flower-bedecked cart is filled with fireworks. The cart stops before the great cathedral and then wires are strung from the cart to the altar inside. An artificial bird called a firebird suddenly speeds along the wire from inside the church. When it touches the cart, fireworks are ignited and immediately the little bird dashes back and disappears in the church. If it beats the explosion of the cart, then the crops will be good for the coming year.

    Of course, one the most popular games all over the world involves eggs. An Easter egg hunt takes place in most cultures in one form or another. Even before the time of Christ it was customary to exchange eggs. The ancient people of Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome followed the custom of exchanging eggs at their spring festivals. In Babylonia, eggs were presented to the ancient goddess of fertility, Astarte. The egg represents new life and thus links itself to the resurrection of Christ. Decorating eggs has been a custom since ancient times. Even in America today, children go to the White House to have an Easter egg hunt on the lawn accompanied by the President.
The Easter rabbit is linked to these ancient customs as well. In Egyptian mythology, the hare is the symbol of the moon. It is thought that its significance at Easter is its association with the date of the festival which is determined by the moon cycle each year. Rabbits are also a symbol of virility so once again, the spring rituals of new life, abundance, fertility and virility have survived through the ages and come together in Easter.