Goa celebrates Easter!

Goa joins the rest of the world in celebrating Easter, the joy of the risen Christ.The whole state of Goa witnessed midnight masses signalling the rise of the eternal King from death after three days as promised in the holy scriptures.

Easter is indeed the sacred celebration of the resurrection of Christ from the dead and is the oldest and holiest Christian festival the climax and centre of the liturgical year and the holy day to which all other holy days point. The Easter day comes on Sunday which is two days after the Good Friday and is celebrated with tremendous joy and thanksgiving in Goa.

For Christians the foundation of the Christian faith is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ lived the righteous and perfect life that we, because of our fallen and corrupt nature, are not able to live.He suffered the penalty for our sins by taking our guilt upon Himself and dying a horrible death on the cross. He rose bodily from the dead that first Easter morning ensuring that we who have  been baptised into his death and resurrection will rise again in glorified bodies on the last day. This is the great pascal mystery that Christians have celebrated since the earliest days of the Church.

In many parts of Goa as also the rest of the world, the Easter egg has become synonymous with this day. The story about the Easter egg is that many ancient cultures ago eggs were a common symbol of new life and immortality. In olden times, Christians adapted the egg to their own religious devotions by abstaining from eating eggs during lent and resuming it after Easter. Eggs came to represent the Lord's resurrection -- just as Christ broke out of the tomb on Easter morning, the yolk of the egg breaks out of its shell when cracked. The decoration of eggs for Easter is a part of the folk traditions of many cultures, although it has no religious significance.