Posts Tagged ‘sacred_holiday’
Science of the Summer Solstice
SCIENCE OF THE SUMMER SOLSTICE The word Solstice comes from the Latin solstitium meaning "Sun, standing-still." This year the Summer Solstice occurs on June 21 at 05:45 UTC, or Coordinated Universal Time, or Zulu Time, or roughly Greenwich Mean Time. This is also known as the Northern Solstice as the Sun is positioned directly above…
Read MoreHistory of St. Valentine’s Day
St. Valentine’s Day. What are the Christian and ancient Roman roots to this holiday?
Read MoreHistory of Passover
PASSOVER This year, the evening at sunset April 19 marks the beginning of Passover. Exodus 12 in the Bible tells the story of Passover from the life of Moses. Ten plagues were visited upon the Egyptian pharaoh (starring Yul Brenner, but he was much better in “The King and I”) to get his attention to…
Read MoreHistory of Maundy Thursday
MAUNDY THURSDAY Amid the bustle of Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, Maundy Thursday is easy to overlook. Few calendars label it, and some churches don’t observe it at all, though it may be the oldest of the Holy Week observances. It’s worth asking why, and how, generations of Christians have revered this day. The…
Read MoreHistory of Herod Antipas
HEROD ANTIPAS Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great (whom we met in the Christmas story) and Malthake. After his father’s death in 4 B.C. he was made tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea in Trans-Jordan. Like his father, he was a lover of great and artistic architectural works, and built the beautiful Tiberias…
Read MoreHistorical Climate of Easter
HISTORICAL CLIMATE OF EASTER What was the historical climate surrounding the last week of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? This man born to die, not just in the normal sense, but in some special sense, entered Jerusalem amidst a torrent of political, social and economic turbulence. The events in Palestine at this time are…
Read MoreHistory of Palm Sunday
PALM SUNDAY The week we now call Holy Week, started with Palm Sunday. Why was this week so important that three of the gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) devote a full third of their contents to reporting this week, and The Fourth Gospel (John) dedicates its entire last half? Jerusalem, which had a normal…
Read MoreHistory of St. Valentine’s Day
ST. VALENTINE’S DAY Valentine or Valentinus, is the name of at least three martyred saints. The most celebrated are the two martyrs whose festivals fall on February 14, the one, a Roman priest, the other, bishop of Terni. It would appear from the legends that both lived during the reign of the Emperor Claudius (Gothicus);…
Read MoreHistory of the Holidays
HISTORY OF THE HOLIDAYS Welcome to this year’s edition of the History of the Holidays. I’m Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian. From now through the Spring or vernal equinox, we celebrate most of the major secular and sacred holidays. This is a series that recounts the history behind the major American holidays, some of…
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