As months go, April is a great month for families.
This year, Easter comes in April and you can hardly miss that. Every store displays Easter baskets, chocolate eggs, grass, and jelly beans.
April is usually great for kite flying, another fantastic family activity.
But there is another side to April– the reverent side.
Easter
Easter is the most important and oldest festival of the Christian church. Christmas might be the most showy, but Easter is the most sacred. In Christian belief, Easter is the day when Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead to live again and defeat death. Easter is the most popular day to attend church.
In the past, attendance at church on Easter was even required. In the Roman Catholic church before 1963, you weren't considered a member unless you attended church on Easter.
For Catholics, the 40 days of Lent have been dim inside the church, without holy water, sometimes with statues covered, and with penitential colors. But on Easter, the church is light and filled with color as they celebrate the risen Lord.
Passover
Jewish families gather on the first night of Passover for the Seder, a ritual meal for Passover.
The youngest at the Seder table asks four questions of Passover that remind everyone why Passover is different from any other night. Passover recalls the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt and their rescue by God.
The Seder meal uses salt water to represent the tears of the Jews in slavery; a fruit-nut paste to remind them they made bricks in Egypt; dipping sauce to remind them they are free; unleavened bread to remind them they had to flee Egypt in haste and could not wait for the bread to rise; bitter herbs to recall the bitterness of slavery. And, finally, with all reclined at the table, they commemorate their freedom by dining as royals did, reclining on cushions.
