Easter Eggs, Christmas etc. and Paganism

[holydylan]

Hi All!

I have a question regarding paganism and Easter bunnies!!! Should churches be giving out Easter eggs to young Catholics at mass? Bunnies/eggs is a Pagan tradition so to me it should not be done at all… I believe that the Pagan and Catholic times of the year are very similar… What should we therefore be careful of during these times to ensure that we are not being a pagan?! I also heard that yoga is not a Catholic thing and some people were doing this in England to celebrate the sun coming up - oh gosh! Also, does anyone know of any cool books or websites in which I can read up about Catholics and Paganism?

I am a young Catholic man and I will be marrying next year before having a Catholic family! I will certainly be researching Catholicism in great detail and trying to be the most knowledgeable and best Catholic man that I can be and this query is part of that

Cheers

Dylan

 

[Razanir]

The eggs is a Catholic tradition. Originally the Lenten fast was a lot stricter (and still is in Eastern Orthodoxy), and notably banned eggs. So on Easter Sunday, they’d bring all the food they couldn’t eat during Lent to be blessed. Hence, Easter eggs.

 

[edwest2]

Hi All!

I have a question regarding paganism and Easter bunnies!!! Should churches be giving out Easter eggs to young Catholics at mass? Bunnies/eggs is a Pagan tradition so to me it should not be done at all… I believe that the Pagan and Catholic times of the year are very similar… What should we therefore be careful of during these times to ensure that we are not being a pagan?! I also heard that yoga is not a Catholic thing and some people were doing this in England to celebrate the sun coming up - oh gosh! Also, does anyone know of any cool books or websites in which I can read up about Catholics and Paganism?

I am a young Catholic man and I will be marrying next year before having a Catholic family! I will certainly be researching Catholicism in great detail and trying to be the most knowledgeable and best Catholic man that I can be and this query is part of that

Cheers

Dylan

Hi Dylan,

This should help answer your questions.

catholic.com/tracts/is-catholicism-pagan

Peace,
Ed

 

[boomerang]

2 Cor 5:17: *“If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new.” *

Everything on earth was pagan at one time. All of us have pagan ancestors. It’s doesn’t matter what it was then. It only matters what it is now. Easter traditions, Christmas traditions have all been made new in Christ.

 

[jmcrae]

Hi All!

I have a question regarding paganism and Easter bunnies!!! Should churches be giving out Easter eggs to young Catholics at mass?

This isn’t actually done. I don’t know what you imagine goes on at Mass, but the only thing “given out” at Mass is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

In some places they might have the custom of an “Easter Egg hunt” for the children - this is essentially a re-enactment of Mary of Magdala’s search for Jesus in the garden belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, where He had been entombed.

As someone up thread mentioned, the eggs are because some people have been fasting from eggs for the 40 days of Lent, and Easter Sunday is the first day to be allowed to eat them again.

Catholics do not believe in the Easter Bunny. As far as I know, the Easter Bunny is a commercial invention to help sell chocolate.

 

[holydylan]

Giving out Easter eggs is common place wherever I have gone (UK) and also in Peru where my girlfriend is from - not a Catholic teaching but locals at church do this.

Okay, so going along with commercial things like Easter eggs and Christmas activities is all good? I was just wanting to ensure that there was no risk of my future family doing anything pagan!

 

[jmcrae]

Giving out Easter eggs is common place wherever I have gone (UK) and also in Peru where my girlfriend is from - not a Catholic teaching but locals at church do this.

Not at Mass though, right? Afterwards, or before, maybe.

Okay, so going along with commercial things like Easter eggs and Christmas activities is all good? I was just wanting to ensure that there was no risk of my future family doing anything pagan!

As long as they don’t bow down and say that the Easter Bunny is their Creator, or that the eggs are magical, or anything like that, your family is fine to celebrate these and any other Church holidays. Remember that the symbols of these holidays are there to remind us of Jesus coming into the world (Christmas), and Jesus dying for our sins and rising from the dead (Easter).

To me, when I hear someone say, “I don’t believe in Easter,” it’s the same thing as saying, “I don’t believe that Jesus died for my sins or rose from the dead,” so I would consider them at best very badly educated in the faith. It’ wouldn’t occur to me to think of eggs or bunny rabbits in connection with Easter - for me, that’s not what it’s about.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

A lot of stuff in Christianity in general is already closely tied to northern European style paganism because the church moved parts of its calendar around to sync up with the nature-based calendar already in use in those parts.

But as someone with Wiccan friends (who I’ve known since long before I became Catholic) I can tell you that Catholicism is a million times closer to modern paganism than mainline Protestantism is.

I don’t know if that’s a result of the Catholic church adopting pagan customs back in the middle ages or of modern Wicca picking up stuff from Catholicism (since it is supposed to be based on ancient beliefs but really only became codified in the '50s or '60s.)

Either way, the list of things that I’ve seen at the Catholic church that I never saw at a Protestant church that are EXTREMELY similar to Wiccan practices include:

• Communion in general (they call it cakes & ale)
• The may crowning of Mary (done to the high priestess, also in May)
• the blessing of candles, flowers, kitchen herbs, etc. on various saints days
• leaving gifts on/near the altar (e.g. flowers for mary)
• St. Brigid’s Day and it’s association with candles/fire (brigid is a celtic pagan goddess of the hearth [fire])

I could probably go on, but those are the ones that spring to mind. I think if you’re going to be Catholic (as I assume we all are here) you have to accept that there’s a bit of this and that mixed in from the pagan world already and that you’re not likely to be able to sort it out again.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Also, for what it’s worth, the Easter egg thing has nothing to do with Lent. Even the name Easter is a reference to a pagan goddess – Eastre (which can be spelled a couple different ways) – who is a goddess of spring. And eggs are a fertility symbol which is why they go with spring since that’s the beginning of the fertile season.

If it was about what you couldn’t eat at Lent, we’d have decorated Easter steaks too

 

[jmcrae]

Also, for what it’s worth, the Easter egg thing has nothing to do with Lent. Even the name Easter is a reference to a pagan goddess – Eastre (which can be spelled a couple different ways) – who is a goddess of spring. And eggs are a fertility symbol which is why they go with spring since that’s the beginning of the fertile season.

If it was about what you couldn’t eat at Lent, we’d have decorated Easter steaks too

Actually, the name “Easter” simply refers to the rising of the sun in the East on Easter morning, when those adults preparing for Baptism would be baptized and receive their First Holy Communion, in medieval times.

(Which is why we still sing, "When I fall down on my knees, with my face to the rising sun … " on Easter morning)

They also had a goddess who was named after the rising sun, but the name “Easter” refers to the rising sun; not to the goddess of the same or similar name. Christians never, ever worshipped that goddess, ever.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Actually, the name “Easter” simply refers to the rising of the sun in the East on Easter morning, when those adults preparing for Baptism would be baptized and receive their First Holy Communion, in medieval times.

(Which is why we still sing, "When I fall down on my knees, with my face to the rising sun … " on Easter morning)

They also had a goddess who was named after the rising sun, but the name “Easter” refers to the rising sun; not to the goddess of the same or similar name. Christians never, ever worshipped that goddess, ever.

I didn’t say they worshiped her. I said they stole her name. The sun rises in the east every day all year round. Yet the only time we call Easter is one short season each year that typically falls in April (or close to it) and just happens to bear the name of the pagan goddess whose feast was also held in April each year. If you want to believe Easter the Christian holiday is named for the sun and not the proximity of that holiday to the other one, be my guest. But I think your version is a serious stretch of logic.

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

Wheels were invented by pagans. Should we reject our cars.
The alphabet was invented by pagans. Should we stop writing.
Time is that same for pagans as it is for Catholics. Should we throw away our watches.
Our numbering system was invented by pagans. Should we reject math.
We could go on and on with this. It’s best to just forget it and live like a Catholic.

 

[Xantippe]

I didn’t say they worshiped her. I said they stole her name. The sun rises in the east every day all year round. Yet the only time we call Easter is one short season each year that typically falls in April (or close to it) and just happens to bear the name of the pagan goddess whose feast was also held in April each year. If you want to believe Easter the Christian holiday is named for the sun and not the proximity of that holiday to the other one, be my guest. But I think your version is a serious stretch of logic.

Bear in mind that “Easter” is just our English terminology. In Orthodox Russia, it’s “paskha” and in Orthodox Greece it’s “pascha,” namely “Passover” (“pesach”) the Jewish holiday that Easter closely coincides with on the calendar for obvious historical reasons (Jesus died just after Passover).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesa%E1%B8%A5

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Bear in mind that “Easter” is just our English terminology. In Orthodox Russia, it’s “paskha” and in Orthodox Greece it’s “pascha,” namely “Passover” (“pesach”) the Jewish holiday that Easter closely coincides with on the calendar for obvious historical reasons (Jesus died just after Passover).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesa%E1%B8%A5

Which, to me, is all the more reason to assume that calling it Easter in English was something picked up from the non-Christians in northern Europe. We have a word for Passover. We have a word for something Passover/Easter related – paschal. Both relate back to the Hebrew / other language version of the same word.

I don’t believe there’s any other language where the word for Easter has to do with the East / the rising sun. (other than German and the other Germanics – Although I could be wrong). So that brings us back to why did it switch in English? And the answer is – because it came to be associated with the existing holiday for the spring goddess.

It’s not like admitting that there are some pagan traditions worked in here and there diminishes our religion any. And it’s fine to say, well originally it came from X, but now we like to think of it as a symbol for Y. But we can’t go re-writing history to pretend X never even happened.

 

[jmcrae]

I didn’t say they worshiped her. I said they stole her name. The sun rises in the east every day all year round. Yet the only time we call Easter is one short season each year that typically falls in April (or close to it) and just happens to bear the name of the pagan goddess whose feast was also held in April each year. If you want to believe Easter the Christian holiday is named for the sun and not the proximity of that holiday to the other one, be my guest. But I think your version is a serious stretch of logic.

Why? Easter takes place around the same time as Passover (Jesus was the final Passover Sacrifice, you will recall, thus fulfilling the commandment of God), which is during lambing season, coinciding with the Spring Equinox.

You are right that the sun rises every day, but on Easter Sunday in the medieval period, people were up and awake for it, getting baptized and receiving their First Holy Communion, down on their knees with their faces to the rising sun (because the Altar was always on the eastern wall of the Church; they were facing the Altar). Putting to death their sinful selves and rising up as sons of God (sunrise = son rise - it’s a pun … also, Easter celebrates Christ rising up from the dead at sunrise on the third day, the Sunday - sun day - after His crucifixion).

Also, Easter was celebrated many centuries prior to anyone coming to Britain, and no one would have ever heard of Eostre before that time. Eostre was a uniquely British goddess; she did not exist in Jerusalem or in Rome, or anywhere in Greece.

 

[jmcrae]

Which, to me, is all the more reason to assume that calling it Easter in English was something picked up from the non-Christians in northern Europe. We have a word for Passover. We have a word for something Passover/Easter related – paschal. Both relate back to the Hebrew / other language version of the same word.

I don’t believe there’s any other language where the word for Easter has to do with the East / the rising sun. (other than German and the other Germanics – Although I could be wrong). So that brings us back to why did it switch in English? And the answer is – because it came to be associated with the existing holiday for the spring goddess.

Easter was not invented by Christians as a replacement holiday for her. It had already existed since 67 AD, three centuries before any Christian ever landed in Britain.

It’s not like admitting that there are some pagan traditions worked in here and there diminishes our religion any. And it’s fine to say, well originally it came from X, but now we like to think of it as a symbol for Y. But we can’t go re-writing history to pretend X never even happened.

And Easter was celebrated from the time of the Apostles - they didn’t just suddenly invent it after the fact as a way of Christianizing Britain.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

You are right that the sun rises every day, but on Easter Sunday in the medieval period, people were up and awake for it, …

It was an agrarian society. I’m pretty sure they were awake to see the sunrise fairly often.

 

[Xantippe]

Which, to me, is all the more reason to assume that calling it Easter in English was something picked up from the non-Christians in northern Europe. We have a word for Passover. We have a word for something Passover/Easter related – paschal. Both relate back to the Hebrew / other language version of the same word.

I don’t believe there’s any other language where the word for Easter has to do with the East / the rising sun. (other than German and the other Germanics – Although I could be wrong). So that brings us back to why did it switch in English? And the answer is – because it came to be associated with the existing holiday for the spring goddess.

It’s not like admitting that there are some pagan traditions worked in here and there diminishes our religion any. And it’s fine to say, well originally it came from X, but now we like to think of it as a symbol for Y. But we can’t go re-writing history to pretend X never even happened.

Yeah.

“It’s pagan!” is not a reason not to do something that is otherwise harmless, particularly not a hundreds of years old tradition that children enjoy. I used to hear that sort of thing from my Protestant grandma with regard to Easter eggs and Christmas trees–it didn’t stop her from doing a Christmas tree every year (thank goodness), but it did give her moral qualms. One of the blessings of being Catholic is that you don’t have to embrace the flavor of Christianity where everything of pagan origin (indoor plumbing, for instance) is assumed to be somehow Satanic.

By the way, in the Christian East, they are supposed to give up eating eggs (and dairy, too) during Lent, so eggs at Pascha do represent a very obvious celebratory end-of-fast custom.

oca.org/questions/dailylife/orthodox-fasting

 

[jmcrae]

It was an agrarian society. I’m pretty sure they were awake to see the sunrise fairly often.

In the sense of being up to work, yes. But as a holy day, no.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Easter was not invented by Christians as a replacement holiday for her. It had already existed since 67 AD, three centuries before any Christian ever landed in Britain.

And Easter was celebrated from the time of the Apostles - they didn’t just suddenly invent it after the fact as a way of Christianizing Britain.

OMG – why are you having so much trouble understanding what I’m saying here? I’m not talking about the existence of an annual feast commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus. I’m talking about the word “Easter” as the name for that feast. If it existed for three centuries before anyone got to Britain (or Germany lets say), then they had to be calling it something else originally, right?

The reason it is now called Easter in English is because it fell at the same time of year as a pagan feast to the goddess Eastre. The pagan festival died out as Christianity became the dominant religion in the area, but the NAME transferred to the Christian holiday previous known as something like Passover lets say. Concurrently, certain pagan symbols (like eggs) that were associated with spring also transferred into the Christian celebration, but took on new meaning as people tried to find a way to combine old traditions with their new faith.

This is like … standard history / cultural influence patterns stuff.