How is Easter decided?

[Justin1224]

The Visitation is a feast of Mary, not of the Lord, so the Sunday takes precedence. There is a clue in the Liturgy of the Hours. Feasts of the Lord, e.g. February 2, the Baptism, have a First Evening Prayer for use when they fall on Sunday. Other feasts, e.g. May 31, do not, since they will never be celebrated on Sunday.

What about the Assumption, when it falls on a Sunday, like it did in 2004 and will in 2010, it takes precedence. Is that only because its a Holy Day of Obligation?

 

[tee_eff_em]

What about the Assumption, when it falls on a Sunday, like it did in 2004 and will in 2010, it takes precedence. Is that only because its a Holy Day of Obligation?

There are “rules”, but they seem quite fluid, so I don’t blame [user]Chatter163[/user] for saying there are not (and which I shall try to address in a separate post).

It does not matter that the Assumption is a Holy Day of Obligation. It matters that it is ranked a Solemnity. According to the Table of Liturgical Days:
3. Solemnities of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and saints listed in the General Calendar.
All Souls.
take precedence over
6. Sundays of the Christmas season and Sundays in Ordinary Time.

Hence, when the Assumption falls on a Sunday (of Ordinary Time), it is celebrated instead of the Sunday.

tee

 

[Joe_Kelley]

They follow the same rule but calculate March 31 by the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. Dates on the Julian calendar are later [21 days later I think, but not sure] than on the Gregorian calendar.<<

Thanks for the correction and additions - Joe

 

[Justin1224]

Last year or the year before I noticed a pattern in the date of Easter. That Easter during each Year A, each Year B and each Year C, falls 3 or 4 days earlier than the previous A, B or C. This happens most of the time except that it might just ahead or back a week from the previous A, B or C. Just look at all the last 9 As.

 

[Aramis]

They follow the same rule but calculate March 31 by the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. Dates on the Julian calendar are later [21 days later I think, but not sure] than on the Gregorian calendar.

13 days. Christmas on Jan 6/7 instead of Dec 24/25. March 31 would thus be April 13 on the “civil” calendar.

 

[tee_eff_em]

Actually, there are not. There is no provision for this, and the Holy See’s decision (announced in 2006) to do this last year came as a bit of surprise. The permission, however, stated that it was only being done for 2008, so it appears to have been some sort of experiment. Time will tell if it is tried again.

There are rules, but they are pretty malleable. And the Solemnity of St Joseph, Husband of Mary has previously been translated backward – The first time in 1967, cf Cum Proximo Anno. I am not sure if it has *always *done so, but it certainly has in the time since I started paying attention. One year I am not sure of is 1989, which the *Catholic Almanac *indicates 19-Mar as Palm Sunday, 25-Mar as Easter Vigil, and translates the Annunciation to Mon 3-Apr and St Joseph to Tue 4-Apr. I do not recall the actual calendar of the year, but the almanac may have been printed in error?

But the rules: The only English I can find are from 1969 (here or here for example), but the Latin has been updated at least as recently as 2000 (here). The 1969 rules say Solemnities impeded by a distinguished Sunday should always translate backward to the preceding Saturday, but in my experience they always (with the exception of St Joseph) translate forward to Monday.
5. Because of its special importance, the Sunday celebration gives way only to solemnities or feasts of the Lord. The Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, however, take precedence over all solemnities and feasts of the Lord.

Solemnities occurring on these Sundays are observed on the Saturdays preceding

.
NB also #s 56 (in part) and 60
56. … The solemnity of Saint Joseph (19 March), except where it is observed as a holyday of obligation, may be transferred by the conferences of bishops to another day outside Lent.

1. If several celebrations fall on the same day, the one that holds the highest rank according to the preceding Table of Liturgical Days is observed. But a solemnity impeded by a liturgical day that takes precedence over it should be transferred to the closest day not listed in nos. 1-8 in the table of precedence; the rule of no. 5 remains in effect. Other celebrations are omitted that year.

In the current Latin norms, these paragraphs are as follows, with notable differences highlighted and my translation):
5. *Propter suum peculiare momentum, dominica suam cedit celebrationem solummodo sollemnitatibus necnon festis Domini; dominicae vero Adventus, Quadragesimae et Paschae super omnia festa Domini et super omnes sollemnitates praecedentiam habent.

Sollemnitates autem in his dominicis occurrentes ad feriam secundam sequentem transferuntur, nisi agatur de occurrentia in Dominica in Palmis aut in Dominica Resurrectionis Domini.

[Solemnities occurring on these Sundays are transferred to the following Monday, unless it happens to occur on Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday.]

1. *… Sollemnitas S. Ioseph, ubi est de praecepto servanda, si cum Dominica in palmis de Passione Domini occurrit,

anticipatur sabbato praecedenti, die 18 martii

. Ubi vero non est de praecepto servanda, a Conferentia Episcoporum ad alium diem extra Quadragesimam transferri potest.*
[If the Solemnity of St Joseph, where it is kept as an obligation, when it falls on Palm Sunday, is anticipated on the preceding Saturday, 18 March. Where it is not kept as an obligation, it can be transferred to another day outside of Lent by the Conference of Bishops.]

1. *Si eodem die plures celebrationes occurrunt, fit de ea quae in tabula dierum liturgicorum superiorem obtinet locum. Attamen sollemnitas, quae impeditur a die liturgico, qui praecedentia gaudeat, ad proximiorem diem transferatur qui sit liber a diebus sub nn. 1-8 in tabula praecedentiae recensitis, servatis iis quae n. 5 statuuntur.

Sollemnitas vero Annuntiationis Domini, quotiescumque occurrit aliquo die Hebdomadae sanctae, semper ad feriam II post dominicam II Paschae erit transferenda.

Reliquae celebrationes eo anno omittuntur.*
[But the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, whenever it falls on some day of Holy Week, is always transferred to the Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter.]

To sum up: In my experience, Solemnities impeded by a distinguished Sunday translate forward, except for St Joseph, which translates backward if it falls on Palm Sunday or Holy Week (because the Annunciation will necessarily fall during the Easter Octave and will translate forward).

tee
Armchair Liturgical Calendar Nerd

 

[gillianreynolds]

Easter Sunday typically falls on a different date each year. Easter is always the first Sunday after or on the first full moon, after the Spring (vernal) Equinox in the Northern hemisphere and the Autumnal Equinox in the Southern hemisphere.

The date is determined by a combination of events centered around the lunar cycle, the solar cycle, the division of each year into 365 days and a 1,700 year old Church ruling.

The explanation starts with the fact that early Christians elected to link the date of Easter to the Hebrew calendar. The New Testament states that the Resurrection took place on the first day of the week following Passover. Sunday is the first day of a Jewish week; the Passover falls on the day of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, which can fall on either March 20 or 21.

Chaotic, or what? The result was that different churches ended up celebrating Easter on various days. And to try to clear up the confusion, the Roman Emperor Constantine I organized a major summit meeting.

The first Ecumenical Council was held at Nicea in present-day Turkey in the year 325. It decreed that Easter would be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon that occurred after the Spring Equinox. This retained a lunar connection as a sort of “memory” of the Jewish calendar system, and ensured that the feast would be on a Sunday. Because lunar phases occur independently of the solar year, this means that there is a “window” of several weeks during which Easter may be celebrated. By this reckoning, in our calendar, Easter must occur between March 22 and April 25.

So, go to your calendar, and find the first day of spring - then find the first full moon immediately following that. And Easter will be the first Sunday after (or on) that first full moon. Note the difference in the southern hemisphere: Easter falls on the first Sunday on or after the first full moon after the Autumnal equinox, not after the first day of Autumn.

The system that was slowly developed throughout the Middle Ages is the base for what we use today.