Life

Oddities Surface on the 2018 Calendar

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If you haven’t checked out the first few months of the 2018 calendar, you might be in for a surprise when it comes to a few well-known occasions.

I saw a meme on Facebook that proclaimed, “2018 is weird.”&nbsp Of course, I had to read farther to figure out what was so weird about a year barely two weeks old. A check of the 2018 calendar, however, revealed a couple of holidays that fall on unusual dates.

The first was Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, a period of fasting some Christians celebrate in commemoration of Jesus Christ’s 40-day fast in the desert shortly before his crucifixion.

Ash Wednesday, it’s worth noting, is also the date some Christians go to church and have ashes marked on their forehead in the shape of a cross, leading countless co-workers to point out to those Christians over the rest of the day that they have some sort of “smudge” on their forehead.

The date of Ash Wednesday always falls 46 days before Easter Sunday. The date of Easter changes each year, which I’ll explain in a moment.

But based on Easter’s date in 2018, Ash Wednesday winds up on February 14th, which is otherwise known as St. Valentine’s Day, or, in some cases, Singles Awareness Day. (Which you choose to celebrate depends on your relationship status at the time.)

That may very well mean that this Valentine’s Day, it might be your blind date telling you that you have something on your forehead.

That brings us to Easter.

Determining the date of Ash Wednesday is simple since its position on the calendar is relative to Easter.

Easter’s date, on the other hand, is set as the first Sunday after the first Full Moon that happens on or after the March equinox. The date of Easter, then, can vary wildly year to year, from as early on the calendar as March 22 and as late on the calendar as April 25.

In 2018, the vernal equinox falls on March 20th. When you take into account the date of the first full moon after March 20th and the Sunday after that, it plots a date 12 days later.

If you’ve done the math in your head, you know that 12 days past March 20th ends up being April 1st.

So, in 2018, Easter falls on April Fools Day.

If that isn’t proof that God has a sense of humor, I don’t know what is.

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.