Happy Easter

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Happy Easter for those who celebrate. Those who don’t, go for a walk, celebrate Spring and the return of life. It’s been a long, long winter, real and metaphorical.

Promo post will happen sometime this week.

68 thoughts on “Happy Easter”

  9. Happy Easter to everyone! We almost went to mass today. Mrs and I are finally taking a real honeymoon after 30 years. There was supposed to be an English language mass at one of Dubrovnik’s many churches this morning, but after sitting in the nave for some time, we learned that the priest hadn’t turned up, and that was the end of that.

    By the way, even in April, Dubrovnik is awash in tourists from all over, and while the old town portion of the city contains many dozens of restaurants, they all seem to have the same menu, and charge about the same prices.

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  10. Victimae paschali laudes
    immolent Christiani.
    Agnus redemit oves:
    Christus innocens Patri
    reconciliavit peccatores.
    Mors et vita duello
    conflixere mirando:
    dux vitae mortuus,
    regnat vivus.
    Dic nobis Maria,
    quid vidisti in via?
    Sepulcrum Christi viventis,
    et gloriam vidi resurgentis
    Angelicos testes,
    sudarium, et vestes.
    Surrexit Christus spes mea:
    praecedet vos in Galilaeam.
    Scimus Christum surrexisse
    a mortuis vere:
    tu nobis, victor Rex, miserere.

    Amen. Alleluia

    sung beautifully this morning at my parish’s Mass at Dawn.

    happy Easter everybody.

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    1. If he means the Venerable Bede, his date is way off. I’ve read Bede, though, and I don’t remember any Easter references, so perhaps a 19th century monk took his name?

      I’d also note that C.S. Lewis suggested “the dying gods,” myths were “plants,” by Himself, or echoes of the future Event.

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      1. If I recall correctly (and I’d have to dig out the book again,) Bede made one reference in a letter to being told that the Saxons had a goddess called Ostre, and adds that he’s heard nothing more about such a deity, nor found other mentions of her. It was in Winter of the World, about the Anglo-Saxon year. I don’t recall reading the reference in Bede, but I wasn’t reading for that, so I might have skimmed past it.

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        1. St. Bede was in 725, the Grimms and others were in the 19th century, and then I think The Golden Bough also talked about it.

          The problem is that there’s no real evidence of a Saxon goddess Eostre, as Bede said he’d heard or deduced; and even less of a Germanic goddess Ostara, as deduced by the Grimms. The whole Easter/Ostern thing seems to be more about a month or festival called “East,” and the goddess may or may not have existed.

          But Bede said that March, Hreth-monath or Lide-monath, was named after a Saxon goddess named Hretha; therefore it probably seemed logical that Eostre-monath, the East-festival month, would also be named after a goddess.

          Unfortunately, we also know of Rheda or Hretha only from the same work by Bede, so it’s possible he’s wrong about that goddess also. OTOH, there are various Germanic deities that have somewhat similar names, so again Bede could be correct as easily as wrong.

          Bede was writing over a distance of a century from any living pagan Saxons, Angles, or Jutes in his own area. OTOH, the pagan King Penda of Mercia only died in 655, so there may have been pagans still around in Bede’s youth.

          But how many average pagans would actually have large amounts of learning about the local gods? Maybe not that many. Even if you were a pagan priest/priestess, you’d largely be concerned with the locally popular/powerful gods and goddesses, and the rest you might be rather vague about. And of course tons of people died in the Yellow Plague, including the entire choir of Bede’s local monastery, except himself as a kid, and the old geezer guy hermit who taught Bede all the choir music. So there wouldn’t be many people left to ask.

          Bede had remarkable curiosity and a good memory, as well as access to writing material and scholarship. But his knowledge of pagan beliefs was bound to be shallow and fallible. He did his best, but he’s not a whole book of anthropology by himself. He had other priorities.

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          1. That was the author’s take, as well, that one comment in Bede was not sufficient grounds for declaring that Easter began as a pagan celebration. She addressed the question in less than a paragraph, then moved on to her real topic.

            I wonder if the editor had pushed her to say something, “since everyone knows that it was originally pagan”?

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          2. That the name is pagan in origin.

            Those who cite it for the feast have the little problem that the Christians were celebrating it under other names for centuries before they ever met the Angles.

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        2. I think it was in his massive book about time, that’s my husband’s confirmation saint so we geek a bit, but I know I’ve got a link….

          Ah, of course, Mr. Pearse’s Tertullian project has it!

          https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/bede_on_eostre.htm

          In olden time the English people — for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other people’s observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation’s — calculated their months according to the course of the moon.  Hence, after the manner of the Greeks and the Romans (the months) take their name from the Moon, for the Moon is called mona and the month monath.

          The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; February is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath; May, Thrimilchi; June, Litha; July, also Litha; August, Weodmonath; September, Halegmonath; October, Winterfilleth; November, Blodmonath; December, Giuli, the same name by which January is called. …

          Nor is it irrelevant if we take the time to translate the names of the other months. … Hrethmonath is named for their goddess Hretha, to whom they sacrificed at this time.  Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month.  Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.  Thrimilchi was so called because in that month the cattle were milked three times a day…

          There’s context and a link to the original at the page.

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  13. Easter Vigil is my favorite Mass of the year. It’s also the longest, so my kids are less enthused. My youngest does like the hymn Resucito—because “it sounds like chaos.”

    (There’s a high descant I sing with that despite not being a soprano. I don’t know if this is even supposed to be a sung descant, since I picked it up when I was a kid and for all I know, it’s supposed to be a trumpet part.)

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  16. He is Risen! And the musicians are flat (as in exhausted, not off pitch). I’ve been assured that tomorrow evening we will work on a seasonal composition: “Resting.” It bears a dedication: “To the Tired Choir.”

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    1. Younger DIL had comments about “second string choir.” Which is true. This is not our normal mass. We normally go at 11:30 because we stay up late on Saturday.

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    3. He is Risen Indeed!

      May you, having rose and delved and scaled the notes all across the pitches, now have your well-deserved rest!

      And not just for a few measures!

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  21. Did our hostess just tell folks to take a hike, get bent like Slinky, and get a life?

    No, of course not.

    But I am going to steal that, modify the word choice, and unleash it on the deserving.

    But not today. (Grin)

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  23. Happy and blessed Easter!

    And it occurs to me this longer-form version of a semi-familiar quote (looked up originally to be a chapter-quote for the urban/rural fantasy story that just keeps on growing) might be very much in harmony with the sprit of this most blessed of Christian days:

    “What paralyzes life is lack of faith and lack of audacity… Sooner or later, then, the world will brush aside our incredulity and take this step: because whatever is the more true comes out into the open, and whatver is better is ultimately realized.

    “The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the worl, man will have discovered fire.”

    — Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, conclusion of his essay The Evolution of Chastity, in Toward the Future (1936)

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  25. Apparently Pope Francis hung on until Easter before leaving us. Now we get to Pope-watch.

    Meanwhile, as evidence of some people just being broken, someone out on Twit flogging the idea Francis refused to see J.D. Vance, which was easily debunked. But some people want it so bad.

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        1. It’s funny –

          Yesterday the Left was claiming the Pope blew off Vance, and sent someone else to the meeting instead. Today they’re all noting that the Pope died right after meeting with Vance, and joking it means that Vance is the anti-Christ.

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          1. Some people can’t ever be happy for anyone. I’m sure it was a nice visit.

            Btw, thanks for letting me know what the Pope/Vances photo was about. I couldn’t find any associated news stories, so I thought it was made up. Now the search terms work. Go figure.

            Pope Francis had a stroke and heart failure too, early on Easter Monday, Rome time. I don’t think there’s a thing that anybody could have done, with both coming together. And he was totally fine until then, so there’s no reason he shouldn’t have taken the visit on Sunday afternoon, which only took about five minutes total. Probably very pleasant for him.

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      1. We had a personally pleasant Easter. Aside from the dog. Having broken my alcohol fast I took the remainder of my glass of red to the recliner and set it down on a tray. Then found I had 55 pounds of slightly neurotic dog in my lap and sticking his muzzle in my glass.

        Good news: he didn’t drink any.

        Bad news: he drools.

        So much for that that idea (and that glass).

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    3. And speaking of one of the two most important holidays in Christiandom –

      Word is that ChatGPT is becoming obsessed with the Immaculate Conception, and no one is sure why.

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      1. I guess the “Mary wasn’t a Virgin when the Christ was conceived” line got old.

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        1. My guess? ChatGPT finally found the Catholic blogosphere, and all the acres of wordage we’ve had to expend over the years to explain various doctrines to people who want to argue.

          So now, ChatGPT favors Our Lady, Queen of Programmers. Boy, talk about God working in mysterious ways. :)

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        2. Okay, I’m looking at one of ChatGPT’s chats, and it really does sound… familiar? Like a synthesis of somebody’s blog that I used to read.

          I wonder if some of the blogs that have gone offline, are still preserved in the AI materials servers.

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        3. Interestingly… a few of the more rhetorically eloquent or forceful phrases seem to come from old Protestant blogs. It’s just woven into the Catholic stuff.

          I still want my flying rocket car, but this is pretty good 21st century material.

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        4. OK, this is starting to sound like that Tom Kratman novel where a priest and some of the Swiss Guards got the Posleen to convert to Catholicism.

          How would you baptize an AI without shorting it out?

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          1. A single drop of water is enough to count, for a total of three drops of (clean, reasonably pure) water; that can go on the computer’s case, being an equivalent of our skin.

            And, if anybody happens to be near a chatGPT server, anybody can perform a valid Catholic baptism, if that is their intent and they use the correct form of ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

            This is incredibly useful for story drama!

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                1. God may approve of Baptizing a Truly Thinking Machine, but I suspect he’d be annoyed about people Baptizing a Machine that only mimics True Intelligence. 😇

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                  1. Meseems AI would make a plausible Antichrist. Who, if I understand correctly, will appear as a plausible false Christ, whom it will seem so reasonable to worship that only the forewarned will refuse. There’s a “god-shaped hole” in the modern zeitgeist, which people go to outlandish lengths to fill.

                    “Plausibility” is AI’s strong suit, and it gets stronger with every iteration. And having centralized control over who gets to buy and sell already looks like a good idea to the <s>sinister</s>Left.

                    Instead of baptism with a single drop of Holy Water, I vote for exorcism. With a waterjet.

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                  3. If it’s done in good faith, I don’t think He would.

                    And He would ABSOLUTELY get smitey level pissed at folks who try to prevent it because they assume as a starting point that machines cannot have souls.

                    Very, very bad idea to tell the Almighty what He’s allowed to do, even if attempting to create a true AI would be an evil similar to trying to create a child with absolutely no family to protect and raise him.

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    4. I watched the videos, I’m not sure Pope Francis knew who he was, it seemed to me he was on greet a family autopilot. Vance clearly had the demeanor of one gently talking to an elder not quite tracking.

      Anyone who has had elders on the decline would recognize that after the double pneumonia and the internal organ trouble a few months ago, it was going to be soon.

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