Easter-day is observed all over Christendom with peculiar rites. In the catholic church high mass is celebrated, the host is adored with the greatest reverence, and both Catholics and Protestants might be led from it, to a more particular attention to the circumstances attending its form and substance. The host, derived from the Latin word hostia, meaning a victim, is a consecrated wafer, of a circular form, composed of flour and water. Both substance and form are regulated by custom of very ancient date. On the night before his execution, our saviour took bread, and blessing it, divided it among his missionaries; but the bread he took was not ordinary bread, but unleavened bread, such as is used by the Jews during the passover week in the present days. This bread is composed of merely flour and water, no leaven during the festival of their passover being permitted to enter the house of a Jew. It is a kind of biscuit of a circular form, and the host thus, by its form and substance, brings us back to the recollection of the Catholics, and the rite celebrated by our saviour. It is the representation of the Jewish cake, or unleavened bread, which is to this day eaten by that nation during the passover week.
The Protestants have deviated from this custom, and in their churches use leavened bread, without any regard to form, and they cut it with a knife into small pieces, forgetting that our saviour broke the bread; but some use leavened bread, and, as they cannot break it, they attempt to imitate our saviour’s action by tearing it in pieces.
For those who wish to have a more comprehensive view of this subject, the following works are recommended: Cardinal Bona on the mass; Dean Comber on the liturgy; and above all, the Hebrew ritual, which is translated into English, and to which both Catholics and Protestants are indebted for greater part of their services.[66]
[66] This article on “Easter” is communicated by the gentleman who favoured the editor with the account of the “Vernal Equinox,” at [p. 375].
April 3.
1825. Easter Sunday. The Resurrection.
Sts. Agape, Chionia, and Irene, Sisters, and their Companions, A. D. 304; St. Richard. St. Ulpian. St. Nicetas, Abbot, A. D. 824.