Category: Holidays Page 1 of 3
Unlike Christmas which is always celebrated on the 25th of December, the date for Easter varies from year to year and across different calendar traditions.
It was decided in the early centuries of the Church that Easter would be observed not as a remembrance of a particular date, such as a birthday, but as an acknowledgement of a special experience that is of significance to each individual Christian. The Easter ritual is a collective proclamation of belief in the resurrection expected by every Christian to occur for them in their own lives.
In the standard Gregorian calendar used around the world, Easter is calculated as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of the Spring equinox. If the full moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter is typically observed on the following Sunday. The early Church established this process for many reasons one of which was to distinguish Easter from all other religious events that seem to occur around the beginning of Spring, including the Jewish Passover.
Nevertheless, a lot of non-Christian elements have attached themselves to the celebration. These include Easter Eggs and Easter bunnies that clearly are related to concepts of life, fertility and rebirth but don’t have anything to do with the sacrifice made by Christ on Good Friday.
The key and central premise of Christianity put forth by the early Church is that Christ died on the cross, He was buried and then rose from the dead. His death was a sacrifice for the sake of humanity and His resurrection is the sign that all who believe in Him will likewise escape spiritual death and enter the Kingdom of God. St. Paul acknowledged that this core belief would be a problem for Jews and pagans (1 Cor. 1:23) but it nevertheless is the defining element of Christianity.
Christ is the universal Lamb whose blood is shed for human redemption. He rose from the dead as a promise that we, too, will live again.
As St. Paul observed “If Christ didn’t rise from the dead, our preaching is worthless and so is our faith.” (1 Cor. 15:14)
Obviously, not every one will believe in the resurrection or accept its significance in the world. To many people, Easter is just a celebration of rebirth in nature connected to many other Spring rituals. However, the resurrection at Easter is the central point of faith in Christianity. To deny this is to deny Christ. You can’t be a Christian if you don’t accept the resurrection at Easter and also acknowledge that the resurrection is a declaration of the redemption of all humanity who choose to accept it.
Easter isn’t about parades, colored eggs, bunnies and chocolate treats: it’s about the blood of the Lamb shed for human salvation and the promise of eternal life with God.
Happy New Year!
2021 will be the start of a whole new cycle – yet the troubles of 2020 will not be left behind. More hardships await us. Those who claim rulership of the world are now more confident then ever that pandemics are a workable tool in controlling the masses. They will certainly use this and more offensive methods to achieve their goals in the days to come.
And what, exactly, are their goals?
Surely, not sex, money and earthly power – these they have in abundance.
What can they be after?
Their goals are not merely physical. They are Meta Physical – SPIRITUAL.
In the novel 1984, the hapless protagonist is told that Big Brother, the supreme leader, desires more than mere acceptance of his authority – he wants LOVE. It is not enough to OBEY Big Brother: you must LOVE Big Brother. He demands the love of his victims even as they squirm under his boot.
What kind of “love” is this that our plutocratic, globalist, elitist overlords demand? Certainly not anything like the human love you and I might understand. This is a dark, fearful, sick sort of love only demoniacs can appreciate.
The good news is that the overlords have exposed themselves in 2020 more than ever before. We can be on our guard in 2021 to the tools of propaganda, violence, poverty and pestilence they use to manipulate and squeeze out of their victims the bitter, salty excretions they label “love.”
We can resist. But it won’t be easy and the consequences of our resistance will become more and more extreme. We must stay strong.
Ephesians 6:11 – 18 provides a blueprint for how to remain steadfast against the adversity to come.
11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the high places. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to remain standing. 14 Stand firm then, with the Belt of Truth buckled around your waist, with the Breastplate of Righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of Peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the Shield of Faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the Helmet of Salvation and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
Be alert, stay strong and keep the faith.
Wake up! Wake yourself up any way you can. Wake up and then wake up everyone else.
Love and Blessings and all good wishes for Peace Profound in the coming year.
Samhain marks the end of the summer and the beginning of the winter season. The holiday was celebrated with religious rituals, bonfires, and dressing in masks. This was a very important point in the year ,and it was believed that it was a time when the boundaries of the land of the living and the dead were blurred.
This year the Autumnal Equinox, or Mabon, occurs on September 22, 2017
Here is a link to a full article post
Beltane or May Day is a fire festival symbolizing spiritual union and fertility.
People around the world are familiar with the life and work of Jesus Christ. He is the founder of Christianity and billions of people venerate Him as the Son of God and Savior of the World. However, Christians are not the only people who revere Him – One of the things that makes the Master Jesus unique is that several other world religions accept His ministry and even claim Him as one of their own.
The Jews, of course, acknowledge Him as a fellow Jew, a Rabbi, preacher and even a prophet who helped clarify aspects of Judaism and brought attention to the teachings of the Torah. Many Buddhists also declare that He must have been a Buddhist monk, as His teachings align quite well with Buddhist doctrines. Hindus also honor Him as one of their own spiritual teachers and tell stories of how He lived, studied and was even buried in India.
And Islam, as stated in the Quran, sees Him as a holy prophet and teacher who lead many Muslims of His time to Allah.
Even non-religious people acknowledge that He was a good and pious man who taught many universal truths and helped shape western civilization. Nowhere is He seen as evil or a corrupting force. His teachings of love and forgiveness are respected by all.
But our Jesus is unique for another important reason – one of cosmic and universal significance. He is the only founder of a major world religion that offered up His life for the sake of humanity.
Moses lived to a ripe old age, and was buried by God. Buddha lived a long and fruitful life and, although he appears to have been accidentally poisoned, did not die a sacrificial death in any sense. Krishna and other Hindu deities are somewhat immortal and so cannot be said to have died at all. And Mohammed, though he might have been murdered, died an old man without offering himself up as a sacrifice for the world.
No, only our Jesus has the cosmic distinction of dying for the salvation of the world. His resurrection is a sign of our own potential for eternal life. And Jesus continues as Defender of the Human Race against the forces of evil and death.
We celebrate Easter in commemoration of His life, sacrificial death and resurrection and the promise that, through Him, all humanity can have eternal life.
