Chapter 16

The Feast
Easter is the principal feast of the ecclesiastical year. Leo, I (Sermo xlvii in Exodum) calls it the greatest feast ( festum festorum ), and says that Christmas is celebrated only in preparation for Easter. It is the centre of the greater part of the ecclesiastical year. The order of Sundays from Septuagesima to the last Sunday after Pentecost, the feast of the Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, and all other movable feasts, from that of the Prayer of Jesus in the Garden (Tuesday after Septuagesima ) to the feast of the Sacred Heart (Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi ), depend upon the Easter date.
Commemorating the slaying of the true Lamb of God and the Resurrection of Christ, the cornerstone upon which faith is built, it is also the oldest feast of the Christian Church, as old as Christianity, the connecting link between the Old and New Testaments. That the Apostolic Fathers do not mention it and that we first hear of it principally through the controversy of the Quartodecimans are purely accidental. The connection between the Jewish Passover and the Christian feast of Easter is real and ideal. Real, since Christ died on the first Jewish Easter Day; ideal, like the relation between type and reality, because Christ's death and Resurrection had their figures and types in the Old Law, particularly in the paschal lamb, which was eaten towards evening of the 14th of Nisan.
In fact, the Jewish feast was taken over into the Christian Easter celebration; the liturgy ( Exsultet ) sings of the passing of Israel through the Red Sea, the paschal lamb, the column of fire, etc. Apart, however, from the Jewish feast, the Christians would have celebrated the anniversary of the death and the Resurrection of Christ. But for such a feast it was necessary to know the exact calendar date of Christ's death. To know this day was very simple for the Jews; it was the day after the 14th of the first month, the 15th of Nisan on their calendar. But in other countries of the vast Roman Empire, there were other systems of chronology.
The Romans from 45 B.C. had used the reformed Julian calendar; there were also the Egyptian and the Syro-Macedonian calendar. The foundation of the Jewish calendar was the lunar year of 354 days, whilst the other systems depended on the solar year. In consequence, the first days of the Jewish months and years did not coincide with any fixed days of the Roman solar year. Every fourth year of the Jewish system had an intercalary month. Since this month was inserted, not according to some scientific method or some definite rule, but arbitrarily, by command of the Sanhedrin, a distant Jewish date can never with certainty be transposed into the corresponding Julian or Gregorian date (Ideler, Chronologie, I, 570 sq.). The connection between the Jewish and the Christian Pasch explains the movable character of this feast.
Easter has no fixed date, like Christmas, because the 15th of Nisan of the Semitic calendar was shifting from date to date on the Julian calendar. Since Christ, the true Paschal Lamb, had been slain on the very day when the Jews, in celebration of their Passover, immolated the figurative lamb, the Jewish Christians in the Orient followed the Jewish method, and commemorated the death of Christ on the 15th of Nisan and His Resurrection on the 17th of Nisan, no matter on what day of the week they fell. For this observance, they claimed the authority of St. John and St. Philip.
In the rest of the empire, another consideration predominated. Every Sunday of the year was a commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ, which had occurred on a Sunday. Because the Sunday after 14 Nisan was the historical day of the Resurrection, in Rome this Sunday became the Christian feast of Easter. Easter was celebrated in Rome and Alexandria on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, and the Roman Church claimed for this observance the authority of Sts. Peter and Paul. The spring equinox in Rome fell on 25 March; in Alexandria on 21 March. At Antioch Easter was kept on the Sunday after the Jewish Passover.
In Gaul some bishops, wishing to escape the difficulties of the paschal computation, seem to have assigned Easter to a fixed date of the Roman calendar, celebrating the death of Christ on 25 March, His Resurrection on 27 March (Marinus Dumiensis in P.L., LXXII, 47-51), since already in the third century 25 March was considered the day of the Crucifixion (Computus Pseudocyprianus, ed. Lersch, Chronologie, II, 61). This practice was of short duration. Many calendars in the Middle Ages contain these same dates (25 March, 27 March) for purely historical, not liturgical, reasons (Grotenfend, Zeitrechnung, II, 46, 60, 72, 106, 110, etc.). The Montanists in Asia Minor kept Easter on the Sunday after 6 April (Schmid, Osterfestberechnung in der abendlandischen Kirche).
The First Council of Nicaea (325) decreed that the Roman practise should be observed throughout the Church. But even in Rome, the Easter term was changed repeatedly. Those who continued to keep Easter with the Jews were called Quartodecimans (14 Nisan) and were excluded from the Church. The computus paschalis , the method of determining the date of Easter and the dependent feasts, was of old considered so important that Durandus (Rit. div. off., 8, c.i.) declares a priest unworthy of the name who does not know the computus paschalis . The movable character of Easter (22 March to 25 April) gives rise to inconveniences, especially in modern times. For decades scientists and other people have worked in vain for a simplification of the computus, assigning Easter to the first Sunday in April or to the Sunday nearest the 7th of April. Some even wish to put every Sunday to a certain date of the month, e.g. beginning with New Year's always on a Sunday, etc.

It was a great day after the church procedure and Father Nathan had a custom. of hosting close friends and members got dinner at his place
Normally Rose prepares and serves the dishes to the guests while Father Nathan welcomes and engages the guests.
But this year Mary Offered to assist with the whole stuff.
But the highlight of the traditional dinner was the fact that Father Nathan conducted the Holy Communion for all who came. Because he died during the season and it was right to carry out this instruction from him, in reverence to his sacrifice.
During the last supper in Mathew 26:17-29, while Jesus was reclining at the table with his twelve disciples, he told them that “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.”
Each one declining that it wouldn’t be them, Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.

The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

Mathew 6:26-28, tells us that while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
According to the bible, Christians, partake of Holy Communion in remembrance of the body and blood of Jesus that was broken and poured at the cross.
Taking Holy Communion does not only remind them of his suffering but also shows the amount of love Jesus had.
However, to be able to share the blood and body of Jesus Christ, one must be born again. In other words must have gone through self-examination, repentance, and confession.
Believers also celebrate as they are reminded that his resurrection led them to triumphant life and glory as well as the depth to which Jesus descended on earth to suffer as a sinner for their sins.
The Holy Communion also reminds them of the width of his arms spread on the cross to bring all humankind into his embrace.
As they partake, they joyfully proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.
In John 6:53-54, Jesus tells that unless one eats his body and drinks his blood, he has no life.
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”
He adds in John 6:54-56 that his body is food and his blood, a drink. Whoever ate his body and drunk his blood abides in him and he will do so with us too.
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”
Scriptures teach that through Holy Communion, people also connect with Jesus Christ not only in the memory of his death but in the spiritual life he gives.
The bible also teaches that in the experience of taking the Holy Communion, Christ is present to meet and strengthen his people.