“Now the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.” (John 7:2)

Christ is Risen!

“Now the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.” (John 7:2)

Holy Days and holidays generally commemorate important religious, historic, or civil events. To the Jews of Christ’s time, they commonly celebrated the Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles, otherwise called the Festival of Booths (“Sukkot” in Hebrew), was the annual celebration of the culmination of Israel’s Exodus and deliverance to the Promised Land. Therefore, in honor of this feast, faithful Jews – even to this day – build a kind of thatched hut in their back yards and eat and sleep in it in remembrance of the forty years of wandering in the desert. And since this feast falls in late September, it is also a kind of harvest festival in which numerous fresh fruits and vegetables are eaten.

Fr. John