For a couple of months now we have been bombarded with the secular version of Easter. There are hot cross buns of every variety – as I write, the daily paper has featured ‘scotch’ infused hot cross buns!!!! There is chocolate in every shape and taste – eggs, rabbits, bilby’s, dark, white, caramel, nougat, hundreds and thousands coated ones and more and everyone is looking forward to a long weekend.

But did you know that Easter eggs are probably the most common & are a popular symbol of Easter? They can be chocolate, as I mentioned above, but they are also commonly hard boiled and brightly coloured in some European countries.

But what do eggs have to do with Easter?

The egg can be seen as a symbol of the sealed tomb from which Christ emerged after his resurrection, just as the chick emerges from the closed egg. From ancient times it was also seen as a symbol of new life. And since eggs were one of the foods from which people fasted in Lent in the early Church as they still do in the Orthodox tradition, people looked forward to eating them again and associated different customs with them.

It seems that as far back as the fourth century in the East eggs were blessed at Easter time. In the East the eggs were stained red in memory of the blood Christ shed on the Cross. Red eggs, sometimes emblazoned with a cross, are still the custom in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic traditions. They are blessed by the priest at the end of the Easter Vigil and distributed to the faithful.

In northern Europe the custom of painting eggs in bright colours at Easter, having them blessed and giving them as gifts goes back many centuries. In some traditions Easter eggs are even offered to the deceased. After a memorial service the people go on the second Monday or Tuesday after Easter to take blessed eggs to the cemetery where they say the traditional Easter greeting “Christ is risen” in honour of those buried there.

So, remember that the celebration of Easter is the most important feast in the Churches liturgical calendar, as it commemorates the central event of the Christian faith – the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and when you, me and others indulge in an egg or two make sure you remember the real message of Easter and give thanks to God for the new life Christ has won for us through his death and resurrection.

HAPPY AND HOLY  EASTER!!