- Feb 5, 2002
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Happy Friday friends,
And a very happy Easter to you all.
The octave is one of my favorite liturgical expressions of reality as the Church understands it.
As most of you know, I am somewhat obsessed with the idea of time — how we conceive of the idea, how we measure it, and how we relate to a God who came “in time,” exists “out of time” and is waiting for us at the end of time.
What we express in the Easter octave is the reality that the power of a single moment explodes the bounds of time so fully that a day cannot contain its feast.
For eight days, every day is Easter, encompassing not just the Sunday itself, but the rest of the week — marking the whole time of creation in the Genesis narrative and God’s day of rest from His labor — and then another day as He brings His plan for all of time to completion.
Of course, the day, or rather date, of Easter is itself a tricky prospect.
The Church celebrates it on, as St. Bede succinctly defined it, “the Sunday following the full Moon which falls on or after the equinox.” This doesn’t lend itself to intuitive calculation, to be sure — there is an insanely cool mechanical watch that can do it, but even it needs a manual adjustment every 40 years or so. And they only made four of them.
The Patek Philippe Calibre 89 knows when Easter is, so you don’t have to worry.
While the Church has insisted on calculating the date independent of the Jewish calendar since the Council of Nicea, the link to the lunar year is essential to the understanding of the event, I would contend, since it simply isn’t possible to unpack the significance of the Paschal narrative without rooting it in the celebration of Passover.
Easter isn’t a “date.” It is living history, linked in and out of time to God’s plan of salvation for all mankind and His relationship with His people. We don’t mark the occasion like an anniversary, we live it fully and actively — or at least we should.
Continued below.
And a very happy Easter to you all.
The octave is one of my favorite liturgical expressions of reality as the Church understands it.
As most of you know, I am somewhat obsessed with the idea of time — how we conceive of the idea, how we measure it, and how we relate to a God who came “in time,” exists “out of time” and is waiting for us at the end of time.
What we express in the Easter octave is the reality that the power of a single moment explodes the bounds of time so fully that a day cannot contain its feast.
For eight days, every day is Easter, encompassing not just the Sunday itself, but the rest of the week — marking the whole time of creation in the Genesis narrative and God’s day of rest from His labor — and then another day as He brings His plan for all of time to completion.
Of course, the day, or rather date, of Easter is itself a tricky prospect.
The Church celebrates it on, as St. Bede succinctly defined it, “the Sunday following the full Moon which falls on or after the equinox.” This doesn’t lend itself to intuitive calculation, to be sure — there is an insanely cool mechanical watch that can do it, but even it needs a manual adjustment every 40 years or so. And they only made four of them.
The Patek Philippe Calibre 89 knows when Easter is, so you don’t have to worry.
While the Church has insisted on calculating the date independent of the Jewish calendar since the Council of Nicea, the link to the lunar year is essential to the understanding of the event, I would contend, since it simply isn’t possible to unpack the significance of the Paschal narrative without rooting it in the celebration of Passover.
Easter isn’t a “date.” It is living history, linked in and out of time to God’s plan of salvation for all mankind and His relationship with His people. We don’t mark the occasion like an anniversary, we live it fully and actively — or at least we should.
Continued below.
