Skip to main content

Easter and Passover Celebrations


Easter

Holy Thursday commemorates the institution of the Lord's Supper by Jesus prior to his arrest, Good Friday his submission to death by crucifixion, and Easter Sunday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. Easter is considered to be the oldest and most important festival in the Christian year, as the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus is meant to renew a Christian's commitment to living a life of truth, justice and love.
Many Christians will mark Easter by attending Church services over the weekend, and for some, this includes a midnight mass and candlelight vigil on Saturday. Families often gather together for dinner on Sunday to celebrate the resurrection.
The symbols that are associated with the holiday in North America are taken from ancient roots. In fact, the work "Easter" derives from the Anglo-Saxon spring goddess known as "Eostre." The custom of dyeing eggs, symbols of new life, goes back to the ancient Egyptians, Persians and Romans. These popular symbols, however, are by no means common to all Christian peoples. In addition, many of these customs and symbols have counterparts in non-Christian celebrations of spring.

Passover/Pesach

Passover or Pesach, the Jewish Festival of Unleavened Bread (Matzah) commemorates the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. Passover is celebrated for eight days with special prayers and symbolic foods at home. It is a "festival of Freedom" to remind Jews of how God released their ancestors from slavery and brought them to freedom in a Promised Land. Passover begins at sundown on March 30th.
Passover is celebrated by more Jews than any other holiday on the Jewish calendar - perhaps because it is so essentially and uniquely a family holiday. The Seder (SAY-der) -- the traditional meal held on the first night of this eight day holiday -- is often attended by complete extended families. In Canada, many families also have a Seder on the second night. Also, because charity and community are such important elements of the holiday, it is common for families to invite to their seder people who, for whatever reason, are not able to have one of their own.

To our families celebrating Easter or Passover, we wish you a happy celebration!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student-Led Conferences - this year on EDSBY!

Family/staff interviews are set for the evening of Thursday November 22, 2018 and the morning of Friday November 23, 2018. This year we will use of an online process through Edsby to manage our interview scheduling.

Edsby is an intuitive, cloud-based platform that will allow families to easily reserve times to meet with their child’s teachers. YRDSB in partnership with Edsby have created a secure platform that protects the privacy of information for our YRDSB families.

Families will need to create an Edsby account to access the online appointment scheduler for their child’s teachers for interviews. Only families who create an Edsby account prior to the schedule being opened November 7th will have access. For more information on EDSBY please see http://www.edsby.com/help/parents/.

If you have not yet registered, you will receive an email from York Region District School Board with instructions on how to create an Edsby account. If you do not see the email, please check your junk mail f…
Post a Comment
Read more

Booking Student-Led Conferences on EDSBY

Friday, November 2nd, 2018

Dear Parents / Guardians:
Westminster PS is pleased to announce that we will be using an online process through Edsby to manage our Parent Teacher Interviews/Student Led Conferences scheduled for Nov 22 & 23, 2018.
Edsby is an intuitive, cloud-based platform that will allow families to easily reserve times to meet with their child’s teachers. YRDSB in partnership with Edsby have created a secure platform that protects the privacy of information for our YRDSB families.
Families will need to create an Edsby account to access the online appointment scheduler for their child’s teachers for Student Led Conferences. Only families who create an Edsby account prior to the schedule being opened on November 7th will have access. For help signing up for Parent-Teacher interviews/Student Led Conferences, please visit http://bit.ly/ptifamily.
If you require assistance in setting up your Edsby account, or have any questions about the booking process, please contact our ma…
Post a Comment
Read more

Character Assembly on "Integrity"

Our Character Assembly this month will be focusing on "Integrity". Throughout the month, our students have been discussing what integrity means to them in the classrooms and with their friends in the school yard. Our students are learning that to have integrity means to be truthful and sincere; to care for the well-being of others by how they treat each other. Displaying integrity is not always easy. It is one of our most difficulty character traits to live by and sometimes it takes years to truly understand what it means.

We look forward to honouring those students who have displayed this trait at our awards assembly on Wednesday, October 28th at 11:15 a.m.

Parents and guardians are welcome to join us.  We thank Mr. Clark and Ms. Croteau's grade 2/3s for hosting the assembly this month.


"Integrity is doing the right thing even if it's difficulty; even when no one is watching." 


"If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it."





Post a Comment
Read more