Click to ENLARGE. Base image from ‘Wikimedia Commons‘.
Passover, in our times, can fall between March 26 and April 25.
So, April 22 is towards the end of that scale, but not at the very end.
Others years, in recent times, Passover has been in late April.
So, last time it fell on April 22 wasn’t that long ago, viz., 2016. Just 8 years ago. Prior to that 1959. That was a 57-year gap. The longest gap in the last 200 years.
Please don’t ask me to explain how the date for Passover is calculated. I have NO clue. I have a hard enough time trying to work out how Easter is calculated.
Next time it will be on March 31 will be in 2086, 62-years from NOW.
Easter on March 31 is NOT that uncommon. We have seen them per the fairly standard 11-year cycle going back to 1991.
Easter, your quintessential ‘movable feast’ can fall between March 22 (since it HAS to be after the ECCLESIASTICAL Spring Equinox which is always March 21) and April 25 (i.e., essentially the end of the 28-day lunar month).
11 years gaps are common because we have 7-days in a week & leap years occur every 4 years.
With Easter, given the HIGHLY convoluted algorithm used, you can also get 62-year gaps. That is what we will now have with March 31 — 62-year gap to 2086.
Very occasionally we could have the 11 year gap ADDED to the 62 to give us a 73-year gap. That is what we saw last year with Easter.
Easter is next Sunday.
Easter is always on a Sunday.
Don’t confuse Easter with Good Friday which is never on a Sunday.
Click to ENLARGE. From an Excel spreadsheet I maintain.
Click to ENLARGE and study here. From an old post, but you can clearly see the point.
So, it wasn’t that far back — just 6-years, i.e., 2017.
A 6-year gap between Christmas falling on the same day of the week is fairly common.
The gaps, as you can see from the 2nd diagram above, can be: 5, 6 or 11.
It all depends on how LEAP YEARS intervene. You can also see that from the 2nd diagram. If there is only ONE LEAP year between the years, it is 6 days apart. More than one & actual leap years complicate matters to give us either the 5-year or 11-year gap.
IF you are into calendaring (as I am) you will immediately seize upon that ’11’. 11 is significant. It is 7+4, i.e., the number of days in a week (7) & the number of years between leap years.
Note that we will have a 11-year gap before Christmas again falls on a Sunday.
Wasn’t that long ago. Just 6 years ago, i.e., 2017.
6 (or 5) year gaps are the norm for this type of repeating holiday given that we have 7 days in a week. So, we essentially cycle through the week. Leap years mess this up & we then get a 11 year gap. That happened prior to 2017. So, the previous July 4th on a Tuesday was in 2006. The next one will be in 2028.
Last year it was a on a Monday. That gave everyone a long 3-day weekend. This year some lucky folks MIGHT get a 4-day weekend.
‘Memorial Day‘ is ALWAYS on the LAST Monday of May.
It can fall between May 25th & May 31st.
So, this year’s May 29 is (still) kind of in the middle.
The last time it fell on May 29 was 6 years ago in 2017.
6 (or 5) year gaps are the norm for this type of repeating holiday given that we have 7 days in a week. So, we essentially cycle through the week. Leap years mess this up & we then get a 11 year gap. That happened prior to 2017. So, the previous May 29 was in 2006. The next one will be in 2028.
Click to ENLARGE. Years when Easter has been on April 9. Note, last time was 1950 — an incredible 73-years ago.
Click to ENLARGE. Dates of Easter 2010 to 2030.
This is pretty incredible & humbling. 73-years!
That means that even I, as old as I am, have never seen an April 9 Easter before. Wow. A 73-year gap is unusual to say the least. Last year’s 62-year gap between April 17 Easters seemed special at the time, but now we have added 11 more years to that. You can see from second image (above) that quite often the gap is 11 years.
Easter, your quintessential ‘movable feast’ can fall between March 22 (since it HAS to be after the ECCLESIASTICAL Spring Equinox which is always March 21) and April 25 (i.e., essentially the end of the 28-day lunar month).
So, this year’s April 9 Easter is towards the early part of that range. Note that the last 6 Easters have all been in April, albeit with the dates spread between April 1 (2018) & April 21 (2019). That alone shows you how the dates can jump around.
In addition to having a bit of fun (given that I am sure that there are folks Googling this (even as I write)) I am trying to make a point.
By tradition, in the WESTERN Church, Christmas, for the last 1,500 years at least Christmas is celebrated each & every year on December 25th — the day of the Winter Solstice in the old Roman Julian calendar. I am not even going to bother going into how Christmas really is a celebration of the Winter Solstice than the birth of Christ. For a start, per the Biblical accounts, Christ certainly was not born in the middle of Winter.
Actually I hope YOU KNOW that the Bible does NOT, in any way, shape or form, mention a date for Christ’s birth. So, December 25th as Christmas is arbitrary.
Parts of the Easter Church, that still adheres to the Julian calendar for their holidays, celebrate Christmas on what is January 7th! That is worthwhile remembering.
Contrast Christmas FIRMLY ANCHORED to December 25th & Easter which is a MOVEABLE FEAST, i.e., it does not occur on the same day each year. Have you ever thought about that. Christmas is fixed on the day of a pagan holiday while Easter is moveable.
Well there is so much we can talk about on this topic, but this is enough.
I was just trying to draw your attention to the arbitrary nature of Christmas on December 25th.
Click to ENLARGE. From an Excel spreadsheet I maintain.
Click to ENLARGE and study here. From an old post, but you can clearly see the point.
So, it wasn’t that far back — just 6-years, i.e., 2016.
A 6-year gap between Christmas falling on the same day of the week is fairly common.
The gaps, as you can see from the 2nd diagram above, can be: 5, 6 or 11.
It all depends on how LEAP YEARS intervene. You can also see that from the 2nd diagram. If there is only ONE LEAP year between the years, it is 6 days apart. More than one & actual leap years complicate matters to give us either the 5-year or 11-year gap.
IF you are into calendaring (as I am) you will immediately seize upon that ’11’. 11 is significant. It is 7+4, i.e., the number of days in a week (7) & the number of years between leap years.
Note that we will have a 11-year gap before Christmas again falls on a Sunday.
Click to ENLARGE. Years when Easter has been on April 17.
Wow. 60 years ago. I have not, as yet, looked into why we had such a long gap. You can see from second image above that most times the gap is 11 years. I will look into this. In the meantime I just wanted to give you a heads up given that this is rather significant.
Not too many folks are going to remember Easter 1960. I was 7.
