THE JEWISH PASSOVER THE PRELUDE OF THE CHRISTIAN PASCH.............

The Jewish Feast of Passover begins tonight, the first of eight nights commemorating the freedom from slavery of the Israelites with their emanicipation from the Babylonian Exile.  This is year 5773 of the Jewish Calendar and this Passover, "Pesach", in Hebrew; which is prescribed to begin on the night of the14th Day of the Jewish month of Nisan, this year is tonight, March 25th, denotes the redemption of the Hebrews in the 1250's BCE,  from their slavery in Eygpt, thus beginning at sunset, for seven nights in Israel, and eight nights elsewhere in the World, the Jewish People observe "chammetz", the foregoing of leavened bread and grains, as they observe and rejoice in the Passover of the Lord.  Seder Meals will be celebrated by Jewish familes in fulfillment of the Jewish customs as defined for the observance of the Pesach, in the Hebrew Scriptures.  As they tell the story of their delivery from exile and the freedom from slavery, they eat a meal of lamb, and other foods that symbolize and signify the Passover Feast.  After thoroughly cleansing their domiciles of the chammetz, they sit at table tonight and read from the Haggadah, while dining on matzoh, drinking four cups of wine, and hiding and finding the Afikomen, a specially hidden piece of the matzoh.  I have attended and co-hosted several Seders over the past 33 years,especially sharing them in parishes of Holy Family, Citrus Heights; St. John the Baptist, Folsom; St. Joseph's, Yreka; and St. Thomas the Apostle, Oroville; as well as St. Rose's Parish, in South Sacramento; with the R.CI.A. families and other parishioners.  A Christian celebration of the Seder, for us as Catholics is an appropriate forerunner to our commemoration of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, which we will celebrate in three days, at the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday evening.  There we will scripturally proclaim the remembrance of the Passover Meal and the First Eucharist, as we recall it was at a Jewish Passover Seder, that Jesus gave us the Bread and Wine being shared with His Apostles, as His very own Body and Blood, the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Memorial of His Paschal Mystery.............Fr.  Troy