Walk Through Holy Week With Me: Why Such an Early Easter?

This is my new favorite “unportrait” of Bradley and Gregory! Love the angles, the light, the sky, the clouds, the honey locust trees, the depth, everything! COOL! We were out all afternoon playing on this beautiful Saturday before Easter, and I took lots of pictures of my sweet boys. LOVE YOU, GUYS!

Later on, as I started to edit the pictures in the waning light of sunset, I was talking to my mom on the phone — she lives in Charleston where the dogwoods are in full blossom and I’m SO jealous — and she asked me if I knew why Easter is so early this year.

By the way, here’s today’s dogwood mugshot. (And some more randomly scattered throughout this disorganized post.) My dogwood is not going to blossom by Easter morning. But we knew that already and can still appreciate the Charleston dogwoods, thanks to my friend, Jill.

So anyway, the timing of Easter for us Western Christians (as opposed to Eastern Orthodox Christians) is based on a complicated formula of the Gregorian calendar, as in Pope Gregory XIII. (My Gregory will like reading that one!)

Generally speaking, Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs after the vernal equinox.

But that’s not entirely true.

Because the “full moon” of which we speak is not the ACTUAL full moon, but an ecclesiastical full moon, which just means that it’s the full moon as determined from tables, and not necessarily the exact date of the astronomical full moon.

But, thankfully, that table of full moons is pretty close to the astronomical one. Phew!

So, Easter falls on the first Sunday…

… following the ecclesiastical full moon…

…that occurs on or after…

… the day of the vernal equinox.

This ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation. (Day 1 of a tabular lunation corresponds to the ecclesiastical new moon.)

(Got a headache yet?)

… And since the vernal equinox is fixed as March 21…

… that means that Easter can never fall before March 22 or later than April 25.

The vernal equinox occurred on March 20 this year, and the ecclesiastical full moon occurred on March 21, so, happy Easter tomorrow!

Just remember, you can’t go by the astronomical full moon…

… because there are differences between the astronomical full moon and the ecclesiastical one. Lunar motion is a complex system!

In 1962, for example, the astronomical full moon was on March 21, 6 hours AFTER the astronomical equinox. The ecclesiastical full moon was on March 20 and BEFORE the ecclesiastical equinox on March 21. If the date of Easter was determined by the astronomical full moon, Easter would have been on March 25 in 1962. But following the rules, Easter was not until the Sunday that came after the next ecclesiastical full moon on Wednesday, April 18. So Easter Sunday fell on April 22 in 1962. My brothers, Steve and Bill, age 2 and 4 then, would have had a grand and fully warm Easter that year!

And I most definitely have a headache!

So for my mom, down in Charleston with the blossoming dogwoods, here’s a pretty bud for you and the gift of answering your question, “Why does Easter fall so early this year?” (Information gleaned from the United States Naval Observatory and various calendars and astronomical tables.)

Above, that’s my dogwood from the point of view of the squirrel-proof bird feeder looking up at the sky.

Incidentally, here’s a little Julie tidbit for all my loyal blog readers…

… my mom was BORN on Easter Sunday! Her name is Easter! Her birthday won’t fall on Easter again until 2018, on which date, she says, she will turn 4 years old.

…Because thanks to leap year and the ecclesiastical moons and the vernal equinox and the… oh never mind… I have to be at church at 6:40 a.m. GOODNIGHT!