EASTER is this weekend – and millions of people across the globe are gearing up to celebrate the annual festival.
Numerous different events mark the Christian calendar during Lent, before the resurrection of Jesus is celebrated. Here is the lowdown on Good Friday 2018...
Alamy Easter Sunday is on April 1, but plenty of other days are commemorated during Lent before the important Christian festivity
When is Good Friday?
This year, Good Friday will fall on Friday, March 30.
In different traditions, the date is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Black Friday or Easter Friday.
It marks the start of the Easter long weekend, which includes Easter Monday on April 2, 2018.
The date changes every year as Easter Sunday must always fall on the next full moon after Spring Equinox.
Is Good Friday a bank holiday?
Good news, Good Friday is a bank holiday, so for many people, it marked the beginning of their Easter weekend.
Monday, April 2, is also a bank holiday, but not every work will give employees these two Easter dates off.
Bank or public holidays do not have to be given to employees as paid leave, an employer can decide whether to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory leave.
The Government website has more details on what your worker’s rights are in regards to public holidays.
Bank holidays may also impact how benefits are paid, the gov.uk website explains how they may be affected.
As some will get the day off work, a clever trick has shown how you can get 18 consecutive days off work using just NINE days of annual leave.
Alamy
Why do we celebrate Good Friday?
Good Friday is commemorated because the date marks the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary.
Accounts of the Gospel state that the son of God was put to death after he was betrayed by Judas and sentenced to death.
The date falls during Holy Week on the Friday before Easter Sunday and sometimes coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover.
Experts believe the event has been coined “Good Friday” because the word “good” means pious or holy.
Alamy Millions of Christians across the globe are set to celebrate Easter on April 1
more about the holidays HAPPY EASTER MEAL Double check your local McDonald's opening times for Easter 2018 FACE OF JESUS What did Jesus Christ look like, when was he born and where did he die? IS IT OPEN? Check out the opening times for your local Argos on Easter 2018 HANDY TO KNOW Find out Easter 2018 opening times for IKEA here EASTER UPDATES Double check your local Morrisons opening times for Easter 2018 SUPERMARKET SWEEP Here's the lowdown on Asda's opening hours over the Easter weekend
Are there any other Easter dates to look out for?
Lent spans for 40 days, and there are numerous events celebrated in the Christian calendar during this holy period.
Here are all the Easter-related festivities to look out for…
Palm Sunday – March 25
Spy Wednesday – March 28
Maundy Thursday – March 29
Good Friday – March 30
Holy Saturday – March 31
Easter Sunday – April 1
Easter Monday – April 2
By Alexis Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Good Friday falls on March 30 this year, a holiday symbolizing the day that Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified. The holiday is followed by Easter Sunday which honors the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the Christian faith.
Passover also begins on the evening of March 30. It ends on the evening of April 7.
Before heading to Flores in eastern Indonesia for an Easter pilgrimage, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Would it be the blood and gore of a Filipino Good Friday stations of the cross with real crucifixions? Or would it include wildcard elements of Indonesia’s animistic past?
Or would it be like milder Easter celebrations of my Australian Catholic youth – where the tallest boy in the class dressed like Jesus and dragged a cross that we’d made in woodwork around the town streets?
A look at the itinerary filled my heart with terror. There was so much churchgoing that at first I thought there had been some mistake.
Good Friday in Indonesia's Catholic enclave, Larantuka – in pictures Read more
Good Friday, for example, had us arriving at a church at 6am for the first mass of the day and returning to the hotel at 3.15 the following morning. That is more than 21 hours solid of churchgoing – more in one day, than I had done in the last 21 years.
We arrived, like many thousands of Easter pilgrims before us, after a long journey. To get to Larantuka – the Catholic heart of Indonesia – we flew from Australia to Denpasar and then to Kupang in Flores, the far east of Indonesia.
After that, it was a five-hour journey through a flyblown and tropical landscape, to the township of Larantuka. Situated on a narrow strip of land between the Ile Mandiri volcano and the Flores Strait, it is far from the tourist trail.
But, over Easter, this place is heaving.
We were in Larantuka to join 6,000 Catholic pilgrims for the religious festival of Semana Santa – a period that begins on Ash Wednesday and reaches its crescendo on Good Friday, the most sorrowful day of the Catholic calendar.
As a child, I had observed an Australian Irish Catholic Easter – strict enough with several masses over four days, no meat on Friday and the stations of the cross, but I expected to be subjected to a strong mix of horror and boredom in Indonesia.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A soloist, tasked with singing a psalm at each station of the cross during the Good Friday service and processions. Photograph: Anthony McKee
Accommodation in the town is basic – many families billet pilgrims. We were housed in a rundown hotel that was little more than concrete breezeblock, rooms cell-like, without running water.
Arriving late at night on Holy Thursday, on the terrace of the hotel was a strange sight: an Englishman in rumpled white linen and broad brimmed hat, with an expensive camera by his side. It was a throwback to colonial times: Malaya and Maugham, Kipling and gin and tonics fizzing and the ice melting madly in the sun. Later he told me that it was not he who was the strange sight – it was us, an Aussie press pack, used to perhaps more luxury junkets or at least hotels with running water – being told that no, this is where we were staying.
“The horror on your faces when you were told about the bucket shower!” he laughed.
The heat in Larantuka was almost extreme, brutal and somehow managed to be dry yet humid at the same time. Sweat ran off us in gallons, the sun was fierce and applied itself to the skin like a blowtorch and there was no breeze despite our nearness to the sea.
Who will we crucify this Easter? Same as always: those who defy power and privilege Read more
Before we left Australia, we were instructed to pack an all-black outfit for Good Friday – something modest with sleeves to represent the sorrow of the day.
According to our guides and our very learned new English friend (ex-BBC by way of the foreign office) the Easter procession has been going for 500 years. Back then, east Flores was on the spice route and became a hotspot for Catholic missionaries.
Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam had never reached this far east of the Indonesian archipelago, but thanks to the arrival of Portuguese missionaries, Larantuka is now 90% Catholic compared with around 3% throughout the rest of Muslim-majority Indonesia.
Prior to the introduction of Catholicism, Flores was animistic. But one day, in the late 1560s, local legend goes, a statue of a woman washed up on the beach and was found by a local fisherman. Written on the sand was “Renya rosary”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Leading the procession of boats is a small canoe tasked with carrying a small box of religious artefacts from one church at the north of Larantuka to another in the south. Photograph: Anthony McKee
The statue was kept safe in a local temple. A few years later the Portuguese turned up in this part of far eastern Indonesia and recognised the statue as Mary, the mother of Jesus. They claimed the statue was a miracle, although it was likely it came from the wreck of a Portuguese ship. Two more religious statues found their way to the town (in mysterious circumstances) where they remain today.
For 500 years, they have been shrouded in cloth and paraded through town each Easter week. These relics form the core of the Semana Santa and were instrumental in turning this part of Indonesia from animistic to Catholic.
Pilgrims had begun arriving in town on Wednesday. I met some from as far away as the US and Germany, as well as Catholic Indonesians who worked as domestics abroad in places such as Dubai and Malaysia.
The king of Laruntuka, Don Andre III Marthinus Diaz Vieira de Godhinho, opened the doors of the Tuan Ma (Mother Mary) Chapel and on Holy Thursday night, hundreds of devotees flocked to the Senhor Chapel to kiss the “feet” of Jesus and visit the graves of loved ones.
Information about the mysterious statues was 'taboo' and we weren’t allowed to see them or ask questions
The next morning, we started with a starchy breakfast: boiled rice and oven-baked potato chips and tomato pasta – no meat of course. The Good Friday procession began early.
All in our black outfits, ready to be bussed into the religious zone, we looked like casually employed waiters at a downmarket function centre. While we managed to be in black, nothing matched; some wore satin, some wore lace, some wore cotton. Our sleeves were at different lengths. Most of us wore hats to ward off the worst of the sun.
We joined thousands and thousands of people all in black wearing t-shirts that bore the legend Semana Santa 2017, with the words Tuan ma and a picture of Mary – the gothic script on black making it look like a heavy metal concert t-shirt.
In our black clothes we were vectors of the radiant heat. All of us in turn were told to take our hats off – it was disrespectful – particularly if worn in the chapels. “But ... But … sunburn!” By 11am we were all soaked in sweat and dreaming of our terrible hotel – peeling off the black clothes, the cool shock of the bucket shower, the hard bed with its soft pillow.
We were following the Semana Santa version of the stations of the cross – which involved the relics shrouded in cloth being taken from one of the eight armidas (stations) to the next. Many of the thousands we were walking with were young – Indonesians in their 20s.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman prays before a crucifix in Larantuka Cathedral. Photograph: Anthony McKee
On one station we ran along the water’s edge for a good view as the relics (a small casket that contains a rosary) were loaded onto a boat and went out with a crowded flotilla of fishing boats in a sea-borne procession that took 90 minutes to complete. The boatmen still use oars and are followed on the water by pilgrims in smaller boats. Some of the boat drivers were Muslim and we were told by our guides that the two religions coexisted peacefully in the area.
But for outsiders such as ourselves, much of what was happening was confusing. Why the black clothes? And what is difference between an armida and the stations of the cross? Why are the statues worshipped? How much animism has mingled with the Catholic rites? What does it all mean? And, after many hours of this, when will it all end?
We had two guides, Raphael and Hans, but they could only help us so much. They were reluctant to spill the beans on the ancient rituals because they said it might bring bad luck. They told us information about the mysterious statues was “taboo” and we weren’t allowed to see them or ask questions.
Somehow the long, hot day finished and we went back to the hotel for a bowl of boiled rice. But that was only the warm-up for the main event.
At night we gathered in the centre of town to continue the procession. This – in terms of aesthetics – the chanting, vestments and solemnity – resembles the Easter processions of Catholic Spain. There are no crucifixions, Filipino style. It’s a family parade.
It was a weird experience being in the procession: by turns boring, profound, confusing, mesmeric and meditative
To our surprise, we journalists were to march in the parade alongside the devout, the priests, nuns and the bishops. “My parents would be proud,” I thought, as I took my undeserved place behind a group of Indonesian and east Timorese clergy.
It was a weird experience being in the procession: by turns boring, profound, confusing, mesmeric and meditative. It took seven hours to walk the full five kilometres. The streets were treacherous, slick with candle wax in shiny, slippery pools on the ground. The candles themselves were wheeled in trolleys: moving and flickering banks of light.
The rhythm of the night was really only known to those who had done this before. We followed, dropping to our knees when everyone else did, chanting some lament when it seemed rude not to. Families lined the street and gravely watched us – their own candles adding to the waxy mess on the road.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The opportunity to carry the box of artefacts is considered a high honour, and an opportunity to be forgiven for past sins. Photograph: Anthony McKee
We saw our English friend at some point – still in white linen – moving swiftly around the crowd with his camera, he gave us a quick wave. There were shrines on the way – paintings of Jesus festooned with fairy lights.
The wax on the ground was becoming problematic, the bishops ahead kept stopping for water and eyed us without curiousity. Group of tiny nuns took selfies.
Apart from the clergy, the most devout-looking participants were women. Some wore mantillas and wept, not wildly but softly, for hours as the processions wound on through the streets. They let candle wax drip over their hands and fingers and did not remove it. The following day all the wax is collected from streets and remelted to be used for next year’s parade.
Their identity concealed behind their robes, they were both menacing and mesmerising to watch.
We skipped ahead to the front of the procession via a waiting vehicle. The head of the procession was an extraordinary sight. There was a woman singing a lament in a blue dress – a stand in for Mary? And sensationally a group of hooded men carrying something on a raised platform.
Unfortunately, the hooded men looked like clansmen, in the light of the flickering candles with their white robes, crosses and pointed hats. They were actually local men, penitents who had sinned that year and wanted to repent. Their identity concealed behind their robes, they were both menacing and mesmerising to watch.
For me, at some point in the night, time and space fell away. Who knew what was under the shrouds and why it was taboo? The parade itself seemed not a facsimile of Good Friday – or the Good Fridays I had known (boredom and fish fingers for dinner, the video store closed) – but closer to the raw sorrow, pain and horror, and length, of that actual day. The Son of God had been crucified, and it was not an easy death.
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Even if you do not believe anymore (or perhaps never did), it is worth acknowledging the horror and violence of this particular part of the Bible. The crucifixion is the dark heart of Catholicism from which the grand miracle – resurrection – springs.
In Larantuka, Good Friday is given its full emotional and spiritual expression. The sleepless vigil of the night before and the long day in the heat with the prayers and the queueing in the sun. And then the night, endless steps and wailing and tears and men in robes and the thrown shadows of torches and the sorrowful faces, lit by candles that lined the way.
Good Friday is becoming the new Black Friday as desperate retailers up and down the UK battle it out to slash their prices the lowest to lure shoppers in.
With high street stores struggling to maintain footfall and ever-increasing online sales creating further problems, 59 per cent of retailers are cutting their prices over the four-day Easter break.
After a Black Friday flop saw sales extended for several weeks afterwards and into the Christmas period, shops are still looking to shift excess stock and cash in on another festive period.
This year 'Easter sale' signs can be seen covering high street window displays as prices are cut by as much as 70 per cent.
British shoppers are expected to spend £1.2bn over Easter, an increase of 6.7 per cent on the previous year to retail analysts.
Experts say Easter sales have grown in popularity over the past five years and the Christian holiday is now seen as yet another excuse to offer heavy price cuts.
Good Friday is becoming the new Black Friday as desperate retailers up and down the UK battle it out to slash their prices the lowest to lure shoppers in. Debenhams is offering reductions of up to 30 per cent
On Black Friday Debenhams was offering similar reductions over a seven-day period
Price cuts appear to be the high street's remedy to a number of store closures, which insiders are branding a 'blood bath'.
Retailers are also battling financial uncertainty caused by Brexit and recent spells of bad weather, which have also contributed to the drop in high street spending.
New Look recently announced 60 branch closures, which could result in the loss of 980 jobs.
House of Fraser has seen its in-store sales drop by 2.9 per cent, with online purchases tumbling by a considerable 7.5 per cent.
Meanwhile much-loved Marks & Spencer continues to struggle with its clothes line, recently revealing the loss of eight stores nationwide.
With UK restaurant chains also struggling, there appears to be less and less reason for shoppers to brave the high street, instead opting to stay at home and shop online.
This Easter shops are using aggressive sales tactics to compete with one another, both in store and online.
Fashion, home and electronic retailers used a similar strategy on Black Friday, with some stores slashing prices by as much as 90 per cent.
Sales were also extended for an entire week in-store to compete with 'Cyber Monday' and its aftermath on sites like Amazon and Currys PC World.
Predictions show 'Easter sales' will be less lucrative than Boxing Day, £1.2billion compared with £4.5billion.
But they are creeping their way up towards the Black Friday sales total, which this year totted up at £2.6billion nationwide.
As part of the newly-dubbed 'Easter sales', The Body Shop is slashing prices by 50 per cent
On Black Friday, when shoppers mainly coughed up online, it offered 40 per cent off in store
Hobbs, Tu at Sainsbury's, H&M, River Island, and Monsoon have all kicked off sales in time for the weekend while the Body Shop also has a half price Easter sale on and Topshop sale items are 70 per cent off.
Department store House of Fraser, already in serious trouble with debts of £400million, has a huge 50 per cent sale on while rival Debenhams yesterday slashed its prices on clothing, accessories and electricals with 30 per cent off many lines.
That meant a Red Herring red cherry print long-sleeved mini dress was £12.50 instead of the usual £25 and an Oral B Pro 3000 rechargable toothbrush was less than half price at £40 instead of the usual £90.
Even low-price store Primark is offering a raft of reductions, while Marks and Spencer's windows are covered in 60 per cent off posters and the chain has 70 per cent off some in-store ranges.
Retail experts said non-food retailers were operating in some of the toughest conditions on record and were desperate to get people spending their money over Easter.
Street fashion chain Topshop is cutting prices by up to 70 per cent this weekend
Then: Black Friday sales were considered a bit of a flop in-store, with huge reductions offered on the high street, but more sales online
Fashion, home and electronic retailers used a similar strategy on Black Friday (pictured), with some stores slashing prices by as much as 90 per cent
The depreciation of the pound, behavioural changes caused by the uncertainty of Brexit, poor Christmas sales and recent bad weather have been a perfect storm of cash-draining horror for retailers.
Dr Jeff Bray, principal academic in consumer behaviour at the University of Bournemouth, said: 'This Easter we are in a unique situation.
Easter Sales: Retailers like Topshop are cashing in on another festive occasion to try to remedy the 'bloodbath' currently hitting the high street
'Retail is having a really tough time at the moment. It seems like every year they say it's really tough, but this year, it really is. There is such a squeeze on disposable incomes.
'Brexit is having an impact on behavioural economics, so people are feeling poorer than they actually are, and that's making them less likely to want to go out shopping and more likely to try and save than spend.
'Equally the two patches of snow we had also had a huge impact because during those days, people simply weren't going out and shopping.
'As a consequence of all of that we have retailers who are rather desperate at the moment. These are almost post Christmas type discounts.'
And he added: 'It's opportunistic. Retailers will now use any excuse or holiday to discount and Easter is no exception. We are becoming more deal-prone.'
This year 'Easter sale' signs can be seen covering high street window displays as prices are cut by as much as 70 per cent. Pictured: The Next 'Easter sale'
Retail expert Richard Hyman said the High Street was currently a 'bloodbath' of failing stores and Easter was a potential lifeline.
He said: 'Easter gives retailers a great opportunity to offer discounts as it is a major time of year.
'We are in the most promotional retail market that anyone has ever seen.
'So far this year, if you look at non food retailers, more than 50 per cent of UK retail has been on sale.
'Christmas was very weak and retailers went into the post Christmas period with more stock than planned and in order to clear that stock they were on sale in a big way until more or less the last week of February.
'What is undoubtedly happening is that virtually every retailer you can think of sells online and their online business is expanding.
British shoppers are expected to spend £1.2bn over Easter, an increase of 6.7 per cent on the previous year to retail analysts. Pictured: Debenhams
Inside Debenhams prices are cut by as much as 70 per cent, as pre and post-Christmas sales flops meant excess stock left over
'As that happens, they invest more money in leveraging their online business and a major way to do that is to send more emails out and promote more.
'Just generating sales has never been harder. Retailers are desperate. There is blood on the High Street.
'I've been an analyst for 35 years so I have a long history in the sector and I have never seen anything like how tough it is now.
'The overriding backdrop to this is that the consumer economy is in much less of a good shape than the government would have us believe. Our economic position isn't great. People simply have less money to spend.'
Predictions by IbisWorld show that Easter spending is growing, but much of it is likely to be online, with footfall figures still struggling.
Footfall on British High Streets is expected to be up 2.4 per cent this Easter, but that may not necessarily translate into sales, with people reluctant to part with their hard-earned cash.
Those in their 40s - known as Generation X - are expected to spend the most, experts claim.
Even low-price store Primark (pictured) is offering a raft of reductions on their cheap products
Retail insights director at analyst firm Springboard, Diane Wehrle, said that this year, the timing of a national pay day just before Easter weekend meant that people may have slightly more disposable income than recent years.
She said: 'Recent adverse weather may have resulted in consumers deferring or cancelling shopping trips, while also delaying household spending on garden products and home improvements.
'If the weather remains mild this Easter weekend, consumers may reinstate cancelled trips for the Easter weekend and are likely to visit garden centres and furniture outlets to refresh homes and gardens, and to fashion stores to browse Spring ranges.'
Rachel Lund, Head of Retail Insight & Analytics, at the British retail Consortium, added: 'The week before Easter is always an important time for retailers as households prepare for four days of eating, drinking and home improvements.
Marks & Spencer is offering 60 per cent off this Easter, after announcing eight store closures across the country
'Families also usually take advantage of the bank holiday on the Monday to make big purchases such as furniture and, weather permitting, their first summer purchases. Today's retailing environment is tough.
'The fall of the pound after the EU referendum has pushed up inflation, drawing more of consumers' budgets towards essentials and leaving less left over to spend on discretionary items such as new clothes or electronic goods.
'That has meant retailers are having to compete harder than ever.
'With the internet offering shoppers the ability to compare prices in an instant and only buying when they see a significant deal, retailers are having to respond quickly in offering discounts, fundamentally shifting the traditional cycle of seasonal promotions.'
