Holy Fire!

Celebrated by Orthodox Christian in the Holy Sepulchre. RT has this stunning video:

Thousands of Orthodox Christian braved hours of waiting to witness the Holy Fire ceremony in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre – an important annual rite for the Church’s eastern denominations.

In what believers regard as a miracle, every year the day before Orthodox Easter, an unlit blue fire from a stone in the Church descends from the dome and ignites a candle held by the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.

Around 10,000 people squeezed into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre– regarded by many as the place where Jesus was laid to rest and resurrected – with about as many waiting outside.
As the Patriarch received the fire, he passed it around, to other clergymen from other denominations (six of them share the church and consider it a holy site) and onto the gathered pilgrims.

The appearance of the flame is symbolic of Jesus’ rise from the dead three days after his funeral.

More photos here.

 

NY Times Has To Issue Correction On the Resurrection

And no, this isn’t an April Fools’ joke…

Scroll down to the bottom of the article here and see for yourself.

Correction: April 1, 2013

An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the Christian holiday of Easter. It is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven.

This is what they originally said:

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life.

Easter!

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

The Shroud Turin Can Be Dated Back to the 1st century AD

New experiments show that the Shroud of Turin dates to 1st century AD.

Vatican Insider:

New scientific experiments carried out at the University  of Padua have apparently confirmed that the Shroud Turin can be dated back to the 1^st century AD. This makes its compatible with the tradition which claims that the cloth with the image of the crucified man imprinted on it is the very one Jesus’ body was wrapped in when he was taken off the cross. The news will be published in a book by Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at the University of Padua’s Engineering Faculty, and journalist Saverio Gaeta, out tomorrow. “Il Mistero della Sindone” (The Mystery of the Shroud) is edited by Rizzoli (240 pp, 18 Euro).

What’s new about this book are Fanti’s recent findings, which are also about to be published in a specialist magazine and assessed by a scientific committee. The research includes three new tests, two chemical ones and one mechanical one. The first two were carried out with an FT-IR system, so using infra-red light, and the other using Raman spectroscopy. The third was a multi-parametric mechanical test based on five different mechanical parameters linked to the voltage of the wire. The machine used to examine the Shroud’s fibres and test traction, allowed researchers to examine tiny fibres alongside about twenty samples of cloth dated between 3000 BC and 2000 AD.

The new tests carried out in the University of Padua labs were carried out by a number of university professors from various Italian universities and agree that the Shroud dates back to the period when Jesus Christ was crucified in Jerusalem. Final results show that the Shroud fibres examined produced the following dates, all of which are 95% certain and centuries away from the medieval dating obtained with Carbon-14 testing in 1988: the dates given to the Shroud after FT-IR testing, is 300 BC ±400, 200 BC ±500 after Raman testing and 400 AD ±400 after multi-parametric mechanical testing. The average of all three dates is 33 BC  ±250 years. The book’s authors observed that the uncertainty of this date is less than the single uncertainties and the date is compatible with the historic date of Jesus’ death on the cross, which historians claim occurred in 30 AD.

The tests were carried out using tiny fibres of material extracted from the Shroud by micro-analyst Giovanni Riggi di Numana who passed away in 2008 but had participated in the1988 research project and gave the material to Fanti through the cultural institute Fondazione 3M.

Just in time for Easter of course…

 

Bullseye

Romans 8:3-4 - “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Sonin the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

This short film for Easter is doing the rounds.

 

 

What Determines the Date of Ash Wednesday?

Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is only five weeks away. If that seems early compared with last year, you’re right. Ash Wednesday 2013 falls nine days earlier than Ash Wednesday 2012 did. Last year, Easter fell right in the middle between the earliest date it can occur and the latest date, but this year, Easter is on the early side–and that means Ash Wednesday will be, too.

Two factors determine the date of Ash Wednesday. The first is the date of Easter. (See How Is the Date of Ash Wednesday Calculated? to learn the exact relationship between the date of Ash Wednesday and the date of Easter.) The second is the length of Lent. While Lent is 40 days, Sundays are not included in the count. (See How Are the 40 Days of Lent Calculated? for more information.) Since six Sundays fall within the 40 days of Lent, Ash Wednesday falls 46 days before Easter every year.

You can find the date of Ash Wednesday for this and future years in When Is Ash Wednesday?

Source

 

Catholics in the Holy Land Change Calendar to Celebrate Easter with the Orthodox

A Hymn for Eastertide

With thanks to Fr Christopher Phillips:

God our Father, Lord of glory,
Thanks and praise we give to Thee;
In Thy mercy to our fathers,
Thou didst bring them through the sea.
So by water hast Thou saved us,
Now from Adam’s sin set free.

Jesus Christ, our Risen Saviour,
Of Thy sacrifice we sing;
As the lamb in ancient myst’ry
To Thy people life didst bring,
So in Eucharistic glory,
Thou, God’s Lamb, art made our King.

Holy Spirit, Breath from heaven,
We Thy precious gifts embrace;
At creation all things living
Thou didst sanctify with grace.
So may we, creation’s glory,
Be for Thee a dwelling place.

Loving mercy of the Father,
Sacrifice of Christ the Son,
Quick’ning power of the Spirit:
In us let Thy work be done!
May we rise to life eternal,
That our Paschal joy be won.

Text: Fr. Christopher G. Phillips
Tune: “Grafton” 8.7.8.7.8.7

The Resurrection of Christ

 

Easter Sunday!

Our Savior Jesus Christ is Risen, the grave could not contain Him…

¹Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary from Magdala went to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb’s entrance. ²So she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved. She told them, “They have removed the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.”³So Peter and the other disciple headed for the tomb. ⁴The two were running side by side, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and came to the tomb first. ⁵He bent over and looked inside the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there but didn’t go inside.

⁶Simon Peter arrived after him and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there. ⁷He also saw the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head. It wasn’t lying with the strips of linen but was rolled up separately. ⁸Then the other disciple, who arrived at the tomb first, went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹They didn’t know yet what Scripture meant when it said that Jesus had to come back to life.

- John 20:1-9