Dear Brothers and Sisters,

 

“Christ is risen, Alleluia!  He is risen indeed, Alleluia!”

 

We offer our Easter greetings expressing the joy we all share in the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. While saying “Happy Easter” is a fine greeting for the season, it seems to lose out to the more formal expression above that clearly and boldly states the reason for our joy. And the truth is that we all could use a little more practice in boldly proclaiming our faith. It is very easy for us to push our faith to the background in the busyness of our lives. Making that conscious effort to announce that Jesus is risen from the dead by using the above greeting helps recenter that faith as the core and most important part of our lives and identity. Many martyrs have been killed because their love for Jesus would not let them remain silent even in the face of opposition, but desire Him above all else and the opportunity to share that truth and love with others.

 

The English term “Easter” is itself a fairly unique word amongst the various languages of the world. Its full origin and meaning is somewhat unclear, but it likely derives from several similar Proto-Germanic words meaning “shine” or “east” (from which we get the English word for east) or “rise” (as in sunrise) or “dawn”. With the development of the word and its meaning, it can be understood how it came to be the term for the Paschal Mystery of the Resurrection, as a type of light rising or the dawn of a new day of life and light.

 

The German language (perhaps obviously) shares a similar term to the English for Easter (“Ostern”), but most other languages use a word derived from “Pesach”, which is a Romanized version of the ancient Hebrew word for Passover. Thus “Pascha” was the Greek term used by the early Church and Latin adopted the same word. Most Romance languages (following from the language of Rome) use some variation from the original Pascha – and it is where we get the English word “Paschal” or the archaic “Pasch” which is basically synonymous with “Easter”. There are other terms used for Easter in other languages:  many Slavic languages use a term derived from a word meaning “Great Night”. And there are a number of other languages with their own unique term for Easter as well.

 

Regardless of the term used for the season and its celebration, we should continue to confidently speak out the reason for the season:  Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!

 

Peace in Christ,

Father Timothy