Easter celebrates the day when Jesus Christ rose from the dead. This occurred on the day after the Jewish festival of Passover. The problem for twenty-first century people is that the Jewish calendar is influenced by the moon. Consequently, Easter Day is the first Sunday after (not on) the Pascal full moon which happens on or after the Official Vernal Equinox [21 March]. Now you know!

Moving it may seem inconvenient, but church leaders (at what is known as the Council of Nicaea) in AD 325 decided to keep Easter linked to Passover, and so it will constantly move between 22 March and 25 April. So maybe 31 March is not so early, in 1989 it was 26th and it will be 27th in 2005. Next year it will be at the other end of the spectrum on 20 April so perhaps then we'll ask 'why is it so late this year?!'

The week starts with Palm Sunday when Christians remember Jesus entering Jerusalem and the crowds laying Palm leaves in front of him.

Looking back to the start of the Easter period we have Shrove Tuesday - in French Mardis Gras or Fat Tuesday, but still popular in England for pancake consumption even though the prohibition of milk and eggs during Lent is long forgotten. Shrove Tuesday is the last day before Lent. Shrove means to 'have heard confession, assigned penance and absolved'. Lent starts on Ash Wednesday. Lent, a Teutonic word originally meaning 'the spring season', has been celebrated for at least 1500 years. It is a time of self-examination and repentance. On Ash Wednesday many churches have an 'Ashing service' where Ash made from the previous year's palms are sprinkled with holy water and fumigated with incense and symbolically placed on the forehead in the sign of a cross, signifying penance. It is also a reminder of our own mortality: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and of a time when people repented with ashes and wearing sackcloth. Lent lasts for 40 days and ends on Easter Eve, again this is counting inclusively. Sundays are for 'joyful celebration' and not days of 'discipline and self-denial' and so are not officially part of the fasting of Lent.

Looking forward from Easter day to the end of the Easter period there are the little remembered Rogation days (for prayer, and formerly also of fasting, aimed at persuading God to protect and give a good harvest). These lead up to Ascension Day 40 days after Easter Day - when we remember Jesus ascending into heaven. This concludes the Easter period itself, but 50 days after Easter is Pentecost (from the Greek for "the fiftieth"). On this day we remember the Holy Spirit first coming and filling Christians with God's power. Pentecost is also known as Whit Sunday so called because of the white clothes worn by those who were baptised that day.

So there you have Easter which, like the word oestrogen, comes from Estre/Eostre the Teutonic goddess of the rising light of day and spring who was worshipped in Northern Europe long before the advent of Christianity.

Please check out our new website for all the latest information sgsgashtead.com