Is our calendar pagan?

[Michie]

*permission to post in full*

Question:​

Some folks say the Catholic calendar and its feasts are pagan in origin. They say the only feast days we should celebrate are those given in Scripture.

Answer:​

Yes, there are sects which hold such a position, but none of them can present a convincing case for criticizing the calendar or the feast days we have.
To call our calendar pagan is incorrect. Its framework, with its months, weeks, and days, is more accurately termed secular. It existed among the Romans and was reformed under Julius Caesar. The Julian calendar was reformed under Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and renamed the Gregorian calendar. The world uses it today.
The Church instituted feasts commemorating Christian persons and events and placed the feasts in the framework which the Romans had previously constructed. This framework should not be considered any more pagan than the roads, bridges, and ships built by the Romans and used by the apostles and the Church. If any sect thinks reverting to the Jewish calendar is somehow better and not pagan, it doesn’t know the facts. The Jewish calendar is derived from the Babylonian calendar, and you can’t get more “pagan” than that.

Are Catholic feasts pagan in origin?

The Church instituted feasts commemorating Christian persons and events and placed the feasts in the framework which the Romans had previously constructed. This framework should not be considered any more pagan than the roads, bridges, and ships built by the Romans and used by the apostles and...

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[Michie]

Christian Calendar

Calendar, CHRISTIAN.—GENERALITIES.—All civilized peoples and even those which seem to be only just emerging from utter barbarism keep some kind of record of the...

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[Michie]

*permission to post in full*

Question:​

How is Easter Sunday determined? Palm Sunday? Ash Wednesday?

Answer:​

Jesus rose from the dead on the first Sunday following the feast of Passover. (Technically, he may have risen Saturday night, but that still counts as Sunday on the Jewish reckoning, which begins each day at sunset instead of at midnight.)

The date of Passover is a complicated thing. Theoretically, the date should be the 14th of the Jewish month of Nisan, and it should correspond to a full moon (the Jewish calendar being partly lunar). In practice, it didn’t always work out that way. The month-moon cycles got out of synch, and sometimes feasts would be held on a “liturgical” full moon even when it was not an astronomical full moon. As a result, rabbis periodically had to announce when Passover would be celebrated.

Christians didn’t like being dependent on the pronouncements of rabbis for how to celebrate Christian feasts, so they came up with another way of determining the date. They decided that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after (never on) the Paschal full moon.

Theoretically, the Paschal full moon is the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox. However, this day can be reckoned in different ways. One way is by looking at the sky, which yields the astronomical spring equinox. But since this shifts from year to year, most people follow the calendrical spring equinox, which is reckoned as March 21.

On the Gregorian calendar (the one that we use), Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or afterMarch 21. Easter thus always falls between March 22 and April 25.

Now, to find Palm Sunday (the sixth Sunday of Lent) you start with the date of Easter and back up one week: It is the Sunday before Easter Sunday.

To find Ash Wednesday, you start with the date of Easter Sunday, back up six weeks (that gives you the first Sunday of Lent), and then back up four more days: Ash Wednesday is the Wednesday before the first Sunday of Lent.

How are the dates for Easter, Palm Sunday, and Ash Wednesday determined?

How is Easter Sunday determined? Palm Sunday? Ash Wednesday? These days don't fall on the same day every year, so what is the process? Click here to read.

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[Michie]

Believe it or not, this roiling controversy has nothing to do with courtship or marriage.​

The Controversy of Christian Dating

No, we're not talking about men and women finding love. We're talking about whether to use "B.C./A.D." or "B.C.E./C.E." when writing the year.

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[Wolseley]

In general terms, no, our calendar is not pagan, although all the days of the week and most of the months are named after pagan gods or pagan festivals:

Sunday: sun day, the day of the sun.
Monday: moon day, the day of the moon.
Tuesday: Tiw's day, from Tiw, the Germanic god of war.
Wednesday: Weden's day, from Weden (or Odin), Germanic king of the gods.
Thursday: Thor's day, from Thor, Germanic god of the sky and storms.
Friday: Fria's day, from Fria (or Frigga), wife of Odin and goddess of marriage.
Saturday: Saturn's day, from Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture.

January: from Janus, the Roman god of doorways and arches.
February: from Februa, a Roman purification festival.
March: from Mars, Roman god of war.
April: from "aprire", "to open", because the skies opened and rained a lot in Rome in April.
May: from Maia, Greek goddess of childbirth and mother of Hermes.
June: from Juno, goddess of women and wife of Jupiter, or Zeus.
July: from Julius Caesar.
August: from Augustus Caesar.
September: "seventh month".
October: "eighth month".
November: "ninth month".
December: "tenth month".

And now you know.......the rest of the story.

 

[DJWhalen]

Thank you for that! I knew the weeks not the months.