Easter 2022

Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In the New Testament of the Bible, the event occurred on the third day after the Romans crucified Jesus. For us Christians, the Easter holiday concludes the Passion of Christ, a series of events that begins with Lent, a 40-day period of fasting, prayer, and personal sacrifice. The beginning of lent is also called Ash Wednesday. The series ends with Holy Week, which includes Holy Thursday (the celebration of Jesus’ Last Supper with his 12 Apostles), Good Friday (on which Jesus’ crucifixion is observed), and Easter Sunday.

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The Origins: How Valentine’s Day Got Its Start

We know that Valentine’s Day is based on Saint Valentine, but it is unclear which Saint Valentine the holiday honors. According to Roman Martyrology, there were three different St. Valentines that were all martyred on February 14th. All three Christian saints died for their religious beliefs during the third century.

Legend has it, Saint Valentine of Rome, a priest in third-century Rome, continued to marry couples after Emperor Claudius II banned marriage because he thought his Roman soldiers were attached and therefore distracted by their wives. When Valentine was caught, he was put to death. The second Valentine, Saint Valentine of Terni, was a bishop who was martyred for helping persecuted Christians escape Rome. The story has it when he was imprisoned, he befriended his jailer’s daughter and left her a letter signed “From your Valentine”. Not much is known about the third Valentine, except that he was a martyr in the Roman province of Africa.

It wasn’t until the Middle Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire, Valentine became a popular saint. His acts of courage and martyrdom played into his popularity and reputation for being a hero for romance.

The first record of a Valentine’s Day celebration was on February 14, 496 AD by Pope Gelasius. It’s not clear why Pope Gelasius established Valentine’s Day. One theory is he wanted to commemorate the life and death of Saint Valentine. Another theory is he wanted to replace the pagan holiday of Lupercalia – a festival celebrated on February 15th to encourage fertility – with a tradition that celebrated a Christian saint.

It wasn’t until the 1300s, during the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day became associated with romance and love. This connection between Valentine’s Day and romance was spurred by the common belief that bird’s mating season started on February 14th.

STAY TUNED! In the next Celebration of St. Patrick’s Day blog, we’ll share how St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated at the turn of the century.

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The origins of Easter are obscure, and it is often assumed that the name of Easter comes from a pagan figure called Eostre – the name of a pre-Christian pagan goddess who was celebrated at the beginning of spring. However, this is most unlikely as there are no references to Easter in the New Testament of the Bible or in the writings of the apostolic fathers. Most early Christians were Jews who celebrated Passover every year. The early Christians continued to observe the Jewish Passover traditions during Holy Week by adding the Last Supper, Good Friday, and Easter commemorations. Christians most likely started using the term Eostre, and then Easter during the pagan spring festival around A.D. 325 – almost 300 years after Jesus’ crucifixion with the acceptance of Christianity throughout the Roman empire, including England. The pagan converts to Christianity had no connection with Passover but they did celebrate the Last Supper, the crucifixion, and the resurrection.

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While Easter is used in the English-speaking world, many cultures refer to this holiday by terms best translated as Passover (ie: “Pascha” in Greek ) — a reference to the Jewish festival of Passover.

At the time of Jesus, Passover had special significance, as the Jewish people were under the dominance of the Romans. Jewish pilgrims streamed into Jerusalem every year in the hope that as God’s chosen people, they would soon be liberated.

At the time of Jesus, Passover had special significance, as the Jewish people were under the dominance of the Romans. Jewish pilgrims streamed into Jerusalem every year in the hope that as God’s chosen people, they would soon be liberated.

During Passover, Jesus traveled to Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the festival. He entered Jerusalem in a triumphal procession and created a disturbance in the Jerusalem Temple. It seems that both actions attracted the attention of the Romans and Jewish priests, and as a result Jesus was crucified the following Friday around the year A.D. 30.

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On a Sunday following his crucifixion, some of Jesus’ disciples reported seeing and speaking to Jesus. For the next 40 days many disciples saw him alive after his death – these experiences gave birth to the Christians celebrating Jesus' ascension into heaven as well as Pentecost as a Christian holiday, not just a Jewish holiday, starting the day after Easter. Because Jesus died during the Passover festival and his followers believed he was resurrected from the dead on the third day, that is why Easter and Passover continue to be celebrated in proximity on the calendar.

In A.D. 325, Emperor Constantine, who favored Christianity, convened a meeting of Christian leaders to resolve important disputes at the Council of Nicaea. The council recognized Christ as “fully human and fully divine.” This council resolved that Easter should be fixed on a Sunday. As a result, Easter is now celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox between March 22nd and April 25th.

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One legend associated with St. Patrick is that he stood atop an Irish hillside and delivered a sermon so moving that it drove all the snakes into the sea. Of course, research suggests snakes never occupied Ireland. Scholars believe the snake story is an allegory for St. Patrick’s eradication of pagan ideology from Ireland.

The shamrock, a three-leaf clover, has been associated with St. Patrick for centuries. According to legend, St. Patrick used the three leaves of the plant as a visual guide when explaining the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). In the 1720’s, the Roman Catholic Church first associated a specific plant — customary for all saints — with St. Patrick, assigning him the symbol of the lucky shamrock.

By the time of his death on March 17, 461, Patrick had established monasteries, churches, and schools. While he may now be known as the patron saint of Ireland, Patrick was never actually canonized by the Catholic Church. During the first millennium, there was no formal canonization process in the Catholic Church. After becoming a priest and helping to spread Christianity throughout Ireland, Patrick was likely proclaimed a saint by popular acclaim.

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How Have St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations Evolved?

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Irish people began observing St. Patrick’s Day around the 10th century, but the first official Roman Catholic feast day in the saint’s honor took place in 1631. The feast was held on March 17 to honor the day St. Patrick died. Until the 1700s, St. Patrick’s Day was a Roman Catholic feast only observed in Ireland — and without the revelry of today’s celebrations. Instead, the faithful spent the relatively somber occasion in quiet prayer at church or at home.

Thanks to Irish immigrants in the United States, St. Patrick’s Day evolved from a religious holiday into a secular celebration of all things Irish. During the 1700’s immigrants began organizing parades on March 17 as a show of pride in their heritage. Currently, more than 100 St. Patrick’s Day parades are held across the United States. New York City and Boston are home to the largest celebrations. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade was held on March 17, 1601, in a Spanish colony in what is now St. Augustine, Florida. The Spanish Colony’s Irish vicar, Ricardo Artur, organized the parade. In the early 1800’s, Irish patriotism among immigrants prompted the rise of “Irish Aid” societies like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. In 1848, several New York Irish Aid societies decided to unite their parades to form one official New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Today, that parade is the world’s oldest civilian parade and the largest in the United States, with over 150,000 participants. Each year, nearly 3 million people line the 1.5-mile parade route to watch the procession, which takes more than five hours.

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Why do people wear green on St. Patrick’s Day? The color green became officially associated with St. Patrick’s Day in 1798, the year of the Irish Rebellion. Prior to the rebellion, the color associated with St. Patrick was blue, as blue was featured on ancient Irish flags. At the time the British wore red, so the supporters of Irish independence chose the exact opposite color to represent their cause. They all wore green, and they sang the song “The Wearing of the Green” during the rebellion, cementing the color’s relevance in Irish history. Fast forward 150 years to Chicago — a related St. Patrick’s Day tradition emphasizing the color green is Chicago’s annual dyeing of the Chicago River. The practice started in 1962, when they released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the river — enough to keep it green for a week!

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Modern day St. Patrick’s Day celebrations continue to take shape. In modern-day Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day has traditionally been a religious occasion. In fact, up until the 1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on March 17. Beginning in 1995, however, the Irish government began a national campaign to use interest in St. Patrick’s Day to drive tourism and showcase Ireland and Irish culture to the rest of the world. For many people around the world, St. Patrick’s Day has evolved into a secular ode to Irish culture, characterized by rollicking Irish music and dance.

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St. Patrick’s journey of faith eventually led him to become a monk, where he rose through the ranks to finally be named Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland. Although he held high office, Patrick did not have an easy time in Ireland. He refused the gifts of kings, and lived in poverty. In his Confessio he writes “…[S]o that I might come to the Irish people to preach the Gospel and endure insults from unbelievers…and so that I might give up my free birthright for the advantage of others, and if I should be worthy, I am ready to give even my life without hesitation; and most willingly for His name.”

Because of the hardships of his life, St. Patrick is credited with the virtues of great faith and perseverance. So how can we develop such virtues in ourselves? OHI offers a full slate of classes and activities to help real transformation occur by applying learning to life. Our curriculum is based on ancient spiritual disciplines as a means of receiving the grace of God, enabling us to do what we cannot do on our own.

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Here are just a few ways that OHI can help deepen your faith and improve your perseverance:

In the OHI Release Ceremony, in a safe and sacred circle of fellowship, we each burn a list of anything in the past that no longer serves us well. We release it to God, so we can be in the present and set positive intentions for the future.
In the OHI Emotional Detoxification class, guests learn how to feel, process, and understand the important role your emotions play in creating and maintaining health and well-being. Through emotional detox, guests discover the healing power of forgiveness.

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In the late Middle Ages, three literary compositions forever associated Valentine’s Day with romantic love:

In 1375, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote “The Parliament of Fowls” – a poem depicting a group of birds gathering on Saint Valentine’s day to choose their mates.
In 1415, Charles, a French medieval duke, wrote a romantic poem to his wife while incarcerated in the Tower of London. In his poem, Charles refers to his wife as “my very sweet Valentine.”
In 1477, Margery Brews wrote a love letter to her sweetheart and refers to him as her “right well-beloved valentine”.

In the 1700s, it was common for lovers to exchange flowers and hand-made Valentine cards elaborately decorated with lace and ribbon. Then in the 1800s, during the Victorian era, the Valentine’s Day card-giving tradition took flight into what we recognize today. In 1840, when the United Kingdom established the Uniform Penny Post making sending mail more accessible to all citizens. This coupled with the mass-production of these love-infused cards – the Valentine’s Day card industry was born.

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In the OHI Mental Detoxification class, guests learn how beliefs, thoughts, and emotions can create dis-ease. Together we learn how to cancel, reframe, and replace negative thoughts with positive ones to facilitate the healing process. The goal is to develop a mindfulness practice for maintaining a positive attitude — gratitude, affirmations, visualization, journaling, and living in the present.
In the OHI Focus 1 & 2 classes, guests learn how to focus on their highest priorities by looking at how they spend their time, identify their core values, and define goals that support these values to achieve what matters most to them.
In the OHI Your Life Is A Gift class, guests learn how to let go of unhealthy demands and expectations, change perceptions, and develop new pathways to unconditional love and happiness.

Crystal Egger

How Have Easter Traditions Evolved?

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Easter is a major Christian holiday like Christmas, Ascension, and Pentecost which have evolved over the last 2000 years or so. In all these holidays, the celebrations include both Christian and some non-Christian (pagan) traditions.

In early America, the Easter festival was far more popular among Catholics than Protestants. For instance, the New England Puritans regarded Easter as too tainted by pagan influences to be appropriate to celebrate. Such festivals also tended to be opportunities for drinking and merrymaking, which the Puritans frowned upon.

Prior to the 17th century, children were rarely the center of attention. As historian Stephen Nissenbaum writes, “…children were lumped together with other members of the lower orders in general, especially servants and apprentices — who, not coincidentally, were generally young people themselves.” From the 17th century forward, there was an increasing recognition of childhood as a time of life that should be joyous, not simply as preparatory for adulthood. This “discovery of childhood” and the doting upon children had profound effects on how Easter was celebrated. Easter became an occasion to be spent with one’s family.

In the 17th century, the Easter holiday began heavily focusing on Easter eggs and the Easter bunny. Decorated eggs had been part of the Easter festival at least since medieval times, given the obvious symbolism of new life. In several Eastern European countries, the process of decorating Easter eggs is extremely elaborate. Several Eastern European legends describe eggs turning red (a favorite color for Easter eggs) in connection with the events surrounding Jesus’s death and resurrection. Yet it was only in the 17th century that a German tradition of an “Easter hare” bringing eggs to good children came to be known. Hares and rabbits have a long association with spring seasonal rituals because of their fertility.

When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th and 19th centuries, they brought these Easter traditions with them. The Easter wild hare was swapped out for a more docile and domestic rabbit, another indication of how the focus was on children enjoying the holiday.

The tradition of buying new clothes for Easter is one that has been a standard for decades in the United States, and perhaps for centuries in Europe. The United States was home to grand Easter parades for decades. “By the 1890’s, the expectation of new clothes for Easter was being encouraged by explicit marketing appeals from merchants via newspaper and magazine advertisements…parishioners from prominent New York City churches strolled Fifth Avenue following Easter morning worship services to show off their elegant fashions, especially ladies’ hats — their ‘Easter bonnets’… At its height in the late 1940’s, the New York City Easter parade drew crowds estimated at over a million people, inspiring other parades in cities like Atlantic City, Boston, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.” (America’s Favorite Holidays, University of California Press)

As Christians celebrate Easter this spring in commemoration of Jesus’ resurrection, the familiar sights of the Easter bunny, Easter eggs, and beautiful Easter bonnets serve as a reminder of the holiday’s very ancient origins outside of the Christian tradition.

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How Do We Connect Our Lives to Easter?

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Easter falls near a key point in the solar year: the vernal equinox (around March 20), when there are equal periods of light and darkness. For those in northern latitudes, the coming of spring is often met with excitement, as it means an end to the cold days of winter. Spring also means the coming back to life of plants and trees that have been dormant for winter, as well as the birth of new life in the animal world. Given the symbolism of new life and rebirth, it was only natural to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at this time of year.

So how do we honor Easter by celebrating Jesus’ resurrection with rebirth in our own life? Spring is a reawakening of the Earth, and it is a reminder to reawaken ourselves to the joy of life. Spring is about new beginnings, inspiration, and hope as was Jesus’ resurrection for people of the Christian faith. It’s the ideal time to consciously choose to let go of anything in the past that is holding you back or weighing you down. It is an opportunity to embrace new beginnings, and consider how you want to shape your future, one day at a time, over the rest of your life as a beautiful child of God built in the image of God.

To kick-off your process of reawakening, try following the 5 Ps to Optimum Health – a framework that supports you in your journey to optimum health:

Purpose - Your purpose should be to reconnect your spirit to God. Finding a natural balance between all aspects of your life is an important step toward holistic health and natural healing. When you find your purpose, you can work toward achieving the goals you need for a healthy, happy, and productive life.
Positive Mental Attitude - A positive attitude is crucial to natural healing and a healthy, balanced life. Your mental state can go a long way toward promoting healing in your body; with a positive attitude, you are more likely to enjoy your life, no matter your circumstances. Be positive in your thinking, and you'll see positive changes in your body taking place as well.
Persistence - When your quest for natural healing and holistic health isn’t progressing as quickly as you’d like, you may be tempted to give up. Persistence is the strength to keep going when times are tough. Understand that holistic health isn't an overnight transformation and that you'll need to practice persistence to reach your goals.
Patience - Patience is something you need in every aspect of your life. You must be patient with yourself as you learn and grow in your new, natural health lifestyle. Your body, your mind, and your spirit need your patience as you work to create an optimally healthy life for yourself. Patience and persistence go hand in hand.
Prayer - Praying to a higher power will help you develop a healthier life and strengthen your relationship with God. Prayers for healing can provide a clarity that can't be achieved through your works alone. You can even pray for patience or to become more positive, tying the five Ps together!

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If you would like more support with your process of reawakening — book a stay at OHI, and we’ll help you jumpstart your own rebirth. Start by making a vision board, and then dive into our full slate of classes that will guide you to embrace your best self:

Release Ceremony: In this safe and sacred circle of fellowship, burn a list of anything in the past that no longer serves you well. Release it to God, so you can be in the present and set positive intentions for the future.
Inspirational Testimonials: Discover the miracles that happen at OHI when guests share inspiring stories of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing.
You Validation: Learn to find the friend in your mirror. Participate in this loving class, where fellow guests share qualities they appreciate about you. All you have to do is say “Thank you” and smile. Discover how giving and receiving validation are equally important.
Self-Esteem: Learn how self-esteem is formed, how low self-esteem can impact health, and how to build self-esteem for personal growth.
Focus 1 and 2: Use your OHI Planner to help you focus on your highest priorities. Look at how you spend your time, identify your core values, and define goals that support these values to achieve what matters most to you.
Communication: Identify different communication styles (aggressive, submissive, and assertive), and learn how to communicate more effectively.

Woman Friends Stephanie

Celebrate the Holidays at OHI

Quick Links

The Origins of Easter

How did Easter originate?

Easter Traditions

How have Easter traditions evolved?

The Easter Connection

How do we connect our lives to Easter?

How Did Easter Originate?

The Origins: How Valentine’s Day Got Its Start

How Have St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations Evolved?

How You Can Develop the Qualities of St. Patrick in Yourself

How Have Easter Traditions Evolved?

How Do We Connect Our Lives to Easter?