Happy Late Easter

Along with my lamentations about a late spring, I could have complained about a late Easter as well.  Easter sort of floats around the calendar, rather than having a fixed date like Christmas.  Why is that?  The date for Easter follows the date for the Jewish festival of  Passover, which is based on the first full moon after the vernal equinox.  Apparently, there can be some complications in the Hebrew calender determining just when the 15th day of Nisan occurs, and there were controversies in the early church.

First Council of Nicaea

So the First Council of Nicaea declared that Easter would be the first Sunday following the first full moon, known as the Paschal full moon, following the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere.  The Council also showed little patience for the fact that the vernal equinox is a moving target, it can occur on either March 20th or March 21st.  God has no time for celestial mechanics and as such they declared March 21st to be the Ecclesiastical equinox.  So Easter can fall anywhere on or between the dates of March 22nd to April 25th by the Gregorian calendar for the Western Church.  The Eastern Church uses the Julian calendar which means Easter falls on or between April 4th to May 8th (Gregorian dates).  So the long and short of all this is, yes, Easter is late this year, technically it can only be one day later than this year.  This is the condensed version see Wikipedia, Easter for the full version..  An interesting aside to this, a very long time ago, I read about a pair of autistic identical twins who could calculate in their heads the date that Easter would fall on for any given year (for thousands of years) within seconds, yet they had no concept of 2 + 3.  These girls were not limited to Easter, they were phase of the moon experts before they were 10 years old.  

Even though Easter is late, it is never too late to learn something new.  Yesterday, my wife was preparing an Easter basket for my 28 year old son.  I made some snide comment about don't you think he is a little old for and Easter basket, and I got the look.  You know the look that states silently "hey poop head, mind your own business".  She then stated, "you know I wouldn't mind getting an Easter basket."  Oh oh!  Apparently pulling a white chocolate rabbit out of a shopping bag on Easter morning is not a sufficient gesture.  Hmmmm!  So yesterday while my wife was at the beauty parlor, I went out and bought an Easter basket, the grass, the pink cellophane, and the appropriate white chocolate (regular chocolate gives her a migrane) goodies.  It reminds me of an episode of  a TV sit com on years ago called Coach.  The Coach, Craig Nelson, was insensitive to his girl friend, Shelly Fabares.  To ask for her forgiveness, he gave her a large bouquet of flowers.  He told her that he called FTD and needed the "I have been a horses ass bouquet."  Well, that's me, while my wife goes to church this morning, I will prepare the "I have been a horses ass, Easter basket" and have it waiting for her when she gets back.  Of course if I truly was not a horses ass, I would go to church with her.  Well, let's not push things here.  I am good for Christmas Eve, but Easter?   Again remember, I never claim to be a poster boy for a good Christian.  Let us hope that my theory that hell does not exist is true, well I am not too worried about that one.  Have a happy late Easter.

Image Credit:

Wikipedia, First Council of Nicaea