A Sign of a Late Easter

Easter will be later this year than usual, and the photo holds a clue as to why. This setting full moon occurred two and a half days ago. Today is the equinox and also happens to be Sunday. If the full moon had waited three days to occur tomorrow, Easter would have been on March 27, a week from today. It didn’t of course, so actually Easter won’t occur until April 17, the first Sunday after the next full moon.

This may seem a strange way to determine the Easter date, but there was a time, not so long ago, when few people had clocks or calendars, and most people never traveled more than 10-20 miles from their place of birth. Lacking printed calendars and timely communication, the sun and the moon were used to determine important times and seasons. Everyone could tell when the moon was full, and it was not difficult to determine the date of the equinox, hence, Easter could be celebrated by everyone everywhere on the same day.