It's Easter.
Happy Easter. What day is Easter this year?
It is April 8th.
How do you know that it is supposed to be on the 8th?
It's the first Sunday after the earliest fourteenth day of a lunar month that occurs on or after March 21.
That's pretty complicated.
You could also say that it's the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox, but Wikipedia says that "does not reflect the actual ecclesiastical rules precisely."
Oh?
They say "The reason for this is that the full moon involved (called the Paschal full moon) is not an astronomical full moon, but an ecclesiastical moon. Determined from tables, it coincides more or less with the astronomical full moon."
I think "ecclesiastical moon" is a puzzling term.
An ecclesiastical new moon is the first day of a schematic lunar month in a computus.
Right.
Such months have a variable number of whole days, 29 or 30, whereas true synodic months can vary from about 29.27 to 29.83 days in length.
I've heard of people referring to months as moons before.
That's because months are based on the cycle of moon phases, which lasts (as I said) about 29-1/2 days. Instead of saying "one month from now", you could say "one moon from now" and it would mean about the same thing.
Well, one moon from yesterday we're due to have a baby.
Happy Easter.
3 comments:
I swear! You must keep an encyclopedia by your computer when you send these blogs! Does Rachelle understand all this? I bet you are reading it to her "tummuy" so John Henry will be smart like his dad when he arrives! Again, keep us posted!!
moooooooooooooooo
I have always known that Easter moved around because of the moon, but never checked to see why. Now, I know ! I just know that some years we have not had as many weeks to work on Easter music with the choir as other years. We prefer the Easters where the moon makes it come later in April.
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