Feast day

“ In reality every day which man passes in the mention of God, the diffusion of the fragrances of God and calling the people to the Kingdom of God, that day is his feast. Praise be to God that you are occupied in the service of the Kingdom of God and are engaged in the promulgation of the religion of God by day and by night. Therefore all your days are feast days. There is no doubt that the assistance and the bestowal of God shall descend upon you. ”

“ My trees are liked the same as yours, but my fruit is almost despised.
"When the Moon feast day of the eighth month and fifteenth day comes, then your children have a happy time for they are honored in every family. When the New Year feast day comes, your children are placed on the first table and every one says, 'Oh, how beautiful!'
"Women and girls like to kiss your children's sweet faces. ”

“ When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it was universally thought that it would be convenient that all should keep the feast on one day; for what could be more beautiful and more desirable, than to see this festival, through which we receive the hope of immortality, celebrated by all with one accord, and in the same manner? ”

“ See Lev. xxiii: 16-18, and then from the first day of the 7th month until the 23d of the same, viz. 1st, 10th, 15th and 23d. The eight last days is a continual feast. Now the Sabbath of the Lord God must inevitably be included in this last eight day feast of Tabernacles; once every year, and very frequently on the first and tenth day Sabbaths, and so from the passover feast to the end of unleavened bread, always must include the weekly Sabbath every year; sometimes on a feast day, which John calls “an high day.” Now the order of these Jewish Sabbaths and feasts. ”

“ FEASTS AND FESTIVALS. A festival or feast [1] is a day or series of days specially and publicly set apart for religious observances. Whether its occurrence be casual or periodic, whether its ritual be grave or gay, carnal as the orgies of Baal and Astarte, or spiritual as the worship of a Puritan Sabbath, it is to be regarded as a festival or “holy day” as long as it is professedly held in the name of religion.
To trace the festivals of the world through all their variations would be to trace the entire history of human religion and human civilization. ”

“ When invited to a feast you naturally ask who are to be the guests. And being told they are distinguished individuals, you prepare accordingly for the festivity. Putting aside the old garment, you purchase, at whatever price, a new one that is up to date. To-day you have come to a sumptuous feast, to one that for many years has been awaiting you. The guests are distinguished above human title and this feast is a Passover. To sit at this table of their Lord and partake of what divine Love hath prepared for them, Christian Scientists start forward with true ambition. ”

“ We know, or ought to know, that appointed feast days, like Christmas, are good and comfortable ordinances, which cheer our hearts on our way through this world, and give us something noble and lovely to look forward to month after month; that they are like landmarks along the road of life, reminding us of what God has done, and is doing, for us and all mankind. ”

“ All other holidays, of which there are something like seventy in the year, are called religious festivals. Every saint has his or her feast day, known as church feasts, except the patron saint of the local church, in which event the festival lasts for a week or more.
Ordinary feasts are held at private houses. The adobe walls of the room selected for the service are covered with paper, and an improvised altar arranged by placing lighted candles upon a table. Upon the wall above the table is hung a colored print of the particular saint whose anniversary is being celebrated. ”

“ Before we pass on to the pagan aspects of Christmas, let us gather up our thoughts in an attempt to realize the peculiar appeal of the Feast of the Nativity, as it has been felt in the past, as it is felt to-day even by moderns who have no belief in the historical truth of the story it commemorates. ”

“ Nothing can be more distinct than the statement that the last supper was the Paschal feast.... The fourth Gospel, however, in accordance with the principle which is dominant throughout, represents the last repast which Jesus eats with his disciples as a common supper, which takes place, not on the 14th, but on the 13th Nisan, the day ‘before the feast of the Passover.’”—Supernatural Religion. ”

“ The winter feast is spread over all the winter half of the year from All Souls day to Twelfth night. A later chapter will illustrate its destiny more in detail. The ploughing feast is to be sought mainly in Plough Monday, in Candlemas and in Shrovetide or Carnival [380] ; the beginning of summer feast in Palm Sunday, Easter and St. Mark’s day; the early variety of the high summer feast probably also in Easter, and certainly in May-day, St. George’s day, Ascensiontide with its Rogations, Whitsuntide and Trinity Sunday; the later variety of the same feast in Midsummer day and Lammastide ”

“ Immersion.—The dipping into the water of recipients of Holy Baptism. For the relative importance of Immersion and Affusion, see article on AFFUSION.
Immovable Feasts.—Those Feasts of the Church which always occur on the same date such as {143} Christmas Day, Feast of the Epiphany, etc. As some of the Feasts, such as Ascension Day, Whitsun Day, etc., are movable depending on the time Easter is kept. Tables and Rules for the Movable and Immovable Feasts are set forth in the Prayer Book for convenience and to avoid confusion. ”

“ Of this kind are the rustic festivals known by the name of saint, church, or parish feasts, which, like most of the ancient fetes, now exist in very degenerate splendour. "The saint's feast is kept," to use the words of Carew, "upon the dedication day, by every householder of the parish, within his own doors, each entertaining such foreign acquaintance as will not fail, when their like turn cometh about, to requite him with the like kindness." ”

“ On the fourth day a feast is held specially [300] for priests, and friends are also asked to join in it. A little of the food cooked on this day is sent to all relations and friends, who make a point of eating or at least of tasting it. On the tenth and thirtieth days after death, and on monthly anniversaries for the first year, and subsequently on annual anniversaries, ceremonies in honour of the dead are performed.23
17. ”

“ Calamy in his sermon said, "This day is the day which is commonly called the Feast of Christ's Nativity, or Christmas Day, a day that hath hitherto been much abused in superstition and profaneness. I have known some that have preferred Christmas Day before the Lord's Day, and have cried down the Lord's Day and cried up Christmas Day. ”

“ The sequence of all Sundays of the Church Year depends upon the date of Easter Day. But the Sundays of Advent are always the four Sundays before Christmas Day, whether it occurs on a Sunday or a weekday. The date of Easter also determines the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, and the feast of the Ascension on a Thursday forty days after Easter Day.
1. Principal Feasts
Easter Day Ascension Day The Day of Pentecost Trinity Sunday All Saints’ Day, November 1 Christmas Day, December 25 The Epiphany, January 6 These feasts take precedence of any other day or observance. ”

“ The feast of unleavened bread to be kept seven days, &c. All first lings to be the Lord’s. First-born sons to be redeemed; none to appear before the Lord empty; six days’ work, seventh day rest, in the harvest; the sacrifice of the Passover shall not remain until the morning. ”

“ In fact, the people pay little or no heed to the saints and give all their thoughts to the souls of their departed kinsfolk. The Feast of All Souls begins immediately after vespers on All Saints' Day. ”

“ One comprises the prayers and divine praises to be offered on feast days and ordinary days; and the other relates to the annual recurrence of Easter and the feasts that depend on it, to be measured by the movement of the sun and moon. ”

“ Then said the priest unto them: “Forasmuch as ye know not the time at the which ye were married, will it be best that next Sunday I marry you again, and then will ye be comforted. Therefore do ye prepare a feast, and kill an ox, and a sheep, and a pig, and bid your children and good friends to rejoice with ye on that day, and with all favour give unto them good cheer; and I promise ye that I also will be with ye.” Then said the boor: “In good sooth, reverend father, is thy counsel 150most comforting unto the spirit. It shall go hard, but I will have a feast which shall be fitting unto the day ”

“ Festivals and feasts, religious and otherwise, which are many and varied, afford some relaxation for the people. There are, according to a list compiled, some 28 religious festivals, 16 national holidays, and 14 popular feast-days. ”

“ NOTE.—Easter Day (on which all the other movable feasts depend) is always the First Sunday after the Full Moon which happens upon or next after the Twenty-first Day of March; and if the Full Moon happens upon a Sunday, Easter Day is the Sunday after.
Advent Sunday is always the nearest Sunday to the Feast of St. ”

“ We cannot help seeing that the supper means the rich banquet to which all of us are invited, and which has been commemorated in the great solemnity of Corpus Christi, through which we have just passed. God himself is the master of the house, and he has invited all of as his friends—that is, all of us who have come by holy baptism into the fold of his church—to come to this great feast, the feast of his own Body and Blood. ”

“ But first we must consider the side of the festival suggested by the English and French names: Christmas will stand for the liturgical rites commemorating the wonder of the Incarnation—God in man made manifest—Noël or “the Birthday,” for the ways in which men have striven to realize the human aspect of the great Coming.
How can we reach the inner meaning of the Nativity feast, its significance for the faithful? ”

“ At an early date, the Fathers mention Easter as the most important of the festivals, as, for example, St Leo the Great, [79] on the grounds that the incarnation and birth of the Son of God served as a prelude to the mystery of the Resurrection, and that Christ had no other purpose in being born of a woman than that He should be nailed to the Cross for us. [80] Other Fathers and the Roman martyrology call it the feast of feasts (festum festorum) . ”

“ We are now four days from the feast of the Nativity, and many things commonly regarded as distinctive of Christmas have already come under notice. We have met, for instance, with several kinds of present-giving, with auguries for the New Year, with processions of carol-singers and well-wishers, with ceremonial feasting that anticipates the Christmas eating and drinking, and with various figures, saintly or monstrous, mimed or merely imagined, which we shall find reappearing at the greatest of winter festivals. ”

“ In modern England we have almost lost the festival habit, but if there is one feast that survives among us as a universal tradition it is Christmas. We have indeed our Bank Holidays, but they are mere days of rest and amusement, and for the mass of the people Easter and Whitsuntide have small religious significance—Christmas alone has the character of sanctity which marks the true festival. ”

“ A sumptuous meal is cooked in every house and poor relations are always cordially invited to the feast. At evening time the Panchanga or the Calendar of the New Year is read out and expounded by a holy Brahman. ”

“ After this ceremony they feasted upon all the offerings and presents of food, drinking the wine after their custom, as usual, until they had consumed it all. This was their feast of the new year, and the solemnity with which they believed themselves to render it perfectly agreeable to their idols. During the month Pop, there were also some of the most devout men who continued to celebrate this feast with their friends, such as the nobles and priests, they being, before others, always the first in the rejoicings and festivities. ”

“ Shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast - Salvation by Jesus Christ. A feast is a proper and usual expression of joy in consequence of victory, or any other great success. The feast here spoken of is to be celebrated on Mount Sion; and all people, without distinction, are to be invited to it. This can be no other than the celebration of the establishment of Christ's kingdom, which is frequently represented in the Gospel under the image of a feast; "where many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" ”

“ However, Lent once passed, with its sewing circles and small whist-parties, then comes the brilliant Easter, with its splendid dinners, its weddings, its christenings and caudle parties, its ladies' lunches, its Meadow Brook hunt, its asparagus parties, and the chickens of gayety which are hatched out of Easter eggs. It is a great day for the confectioner. ”

“ There are, in fact, forty holidays in the year, and, as each of these is distinguished by some feast or religious ceremonial, it can readily be seen how large an influence the Church has upon the people. ”

“ This great festival was, in former times, kept with so much freedom and openness of heart, that every one in the country where a gentleman resided, possessed at least a day of pleasure in the Christmas holydays; the tables were all spread, from the first to the last, with the sirloyns of beef, [142] the minc’d pies, the plumb-porridge, the capons, turkeys, geese, and plumb-puddings, were all brought upon the board; and all those who had sharp stomacks and sharp knives, eat heartily and were welcome, which gave rise to the proverb, Merry in the hall, where beards wag all. ”

“ In the Directory for the Public Worship of God which was drawn up by the Westminster Assembly, and accepted by the Church of Scotland in 1645, there is an appendix which declares that there is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s day, which is the Christian Sabbath; festival days, vulgarly called holy-days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued ”