Lent & Easter 2025LENT
SHROVE TUESDAY MARCH 4 * 5 PM Pancake supper ASH WEDNESDAY MARCH 5 * 12 NOON & 7 PM Holy Eucharist with the Imposition of Ashes View our 2025 Holy Week Schedule here. EASTER GREAT VIGIL SATURDAY, APRIL 19 * 8 PM EASTER DAY SUNDAY, APRIL 20 * 10 AM Holy Eucharist with Baptisms EASTER BREAKFAST * 9 AM on the Patio EASTER EGG HUNT * 9:15 AM in the Garden |
Lent & EasterEaster is the Feast of the Resurrection, both the source and the summit of the Church's year and the apex of its celebration! It is the heart of Christian faith. Holy Week is the remembrance of the Passion of Jesus and Lent is the time of preparation.
LENT Lent is the forty days before Easter (excluding Sundays), beginning on Ash Wednesday. Lent is a season of preparation which brings us (symbolically) through the wilderness to the promised land of redemption. The wilderness of Lent is meant to cleanse us from that which inhibits our relationship with God and by engaging in the ancient Lenten disciplines (practices) of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we prepare ourselves to live more fully as followers of Jesus. Like Noah's forty days on the ark and like Israel's forty years in the wilderness of Sinai, the forty days of Lent prepare us to receive the promise of the Paschal Mystery: redemption and new life. A version of Lent has been practiced since the 2nd century CE as a time when those who were to be welcomed into the Church through baptism were prepared and performed their penance. Lent invites us to practice three ancient disciplines as a means of preparation and growth:
HOLY WEEK & THE SACRED TRIDUUM The end of Lent is Holy Week, during which the Church honors and recalls the events of Jesus' last days:
Find more on HOLY WEEK here. |
EASTER
Easter recalls the victory of God through Jesus Christ over death itself and God's offer thereafter of eternal life for all. The celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord is most certainly the most the ancient of Christian remembrances and, having been connected with the Jewish feast of Passover (Pesach), has been celebrated in the spring since the beginning. The name, "Easter," is of uncertain origin though it seems most likely to have derived from High German, eostarum, meaning "dawn." It could, however, have also derived from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the spring, Oestre. In any event, the name sets the experience of dawn or springtime next to the ancient stories of deliverance and the proclamation of the risen Christ.
On Easter Day and during the season of Easter, worshippers will note the pronounced use of "Alleluias" (which had gone missing during Lent). Also, for the next fifty days - "The Great Fifty Days" - the Paschal Candle will remain lit as the church continues its celebration of Resurrection.
In western Christendom, Easter Day occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21 (the approximation for the vernal equinox). Because of how the date is calculated in Easter and Orthodox Christendom, the dates of Easter in Western and Eastern Christianity can be and are often different.
Easter is a season lasting fifty days. It begins on Easter Day and ends on the Day of Pentecost.
Easter recalls the victory of God through Jesus Christ over death itself and God's offer thereafter of eternal life for all. The celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord is most certainly the most the ancient of Christian remembrances and, having been connected with the Jewish feast of Passover (Pesach), has been celebrated in the spring since the beginning. The name, "Easter," is of uncertain origin though it seems most likely to have derived from High German, eostarum, meaning "dawn." It could, however, have also derived from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the spring, Oestre. In any event, the name sets the experience of dawn or springtime next to the ancient stories of deliverance and the proclamation of the risen Christ.
On Easter Day and during the season of Easter, worshippers will note the pronounced use of "Alleluias" (which had gone missing during Lent). Also, for the next fifty days - "The Great Fifty Days" - the Paschal Candle will remain lit as the church continues its celebration of Resurrection.
In western Christendom, Easter Day occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21 (the approximation for the vernal equinox). Because of how the date is calculated in Easter and Orthodox Christendom, the dates of Easter in Western and Eastern Christianity can be and are often different.
Easter is a season lasting fifty days. It begins on Easter Day and ends on the Day of Pentecost.