Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Looking Backward~and Forward


I got home later than I expected and that gives me a perfect excuse to wait until tomorrow to write more about the Armadio, which is okay because this is what I really want to post tonight. This is a post from two years ago, and I decided I would just add to it instead of writing a new one on the same topic.

Early this morning the moon was full, which is how we know it's going to be Easter on Sunday, since it's the first full moon since the Spring equinox. My granddaughter took the picture below on Holy Thursday in 2012, on the way home from Mass, and it may have actually been a day early, but close enough. After this, I decided I would take a picture of this full moon every year.


The first full moon after the Vernal Equinox--2012
Ecclesiastical Full Moon
Paschal Full Moon

I took this next one in the early morning hours of Holy Thursday in 2013. It was March 28, and I was on a private retreat in French Camp Mississippi. 


The difference in size has more to do with the fact that I didn't enlarge this one than anything else.

I was excited about taking the picture for the third year, especially because the eclipse was going to make the moon look blood red, but alas, it was completely overcast here. We set the alarm for the middle of the night and my husband got up and looked, but no luck. When I got up a little after four this morning, however, I noticed light coming in the window, and sure enough, most of the clouds were gone,


It was cold last year on March 28, but nowhere near as cold as it was this morning on April 15.  I like this picture pretty well, but my granddaughter completely outdid me. Of course, she has a great camera and was in Arizona where the skies were clear.


And then, she's a much better photographer.

And then there's my Paschal Moon poem.
Computus

How to discern the Sunday on which falls
The feast on which our Saviour rose to life?
An ancient quandary leads us yet to strife
And disagreement unity forestalls.

The full moon past spring day when sun has crossed
The line that separates the south from north
Now causes separation to go forth
‘Til East and West the common feast have lost.

Which Moon is that Ecclesiastical?
Now Rome will look to Gregory to learn
The answer while the Orthodox will turn
To Julius to discern when this Moon’s full.

The Moon herself oblivious to blame
Reveals her face and does not feel the shame.

JTC

Photo credit: My granddaughter, Tessa Love, took the top picture from a moving car on the way home from church, and the bottom picture, also.

5 comments:

  1. May He who illuminates thee, illuminate me.

    Bill

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  2. Hello, welcome! Paul's advice seems to work.

    AMDG

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  3. I am ashamed to say I never read your poem -- which you told me about years ago! -- until today. It is fun, and I love the ending, so comforting. The dear moon belongs to all of us, a gift from God, and all of us belong to him (or her?) and that sounds like unity... A unity not of thought or belief, at least on the part of the moon, but of being. No shame.

    Love,
    Gretchen

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