Dear Dames and Knights,

Easter is a Judeo-Christian tradition of the celebration of Peace and Life.

For the Jewish religion, this period is called Pesach (Passover), or Feast of Liberation, and celebrates the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt 3000 years ago. For the ritual celebration, the houses must be clean and in good order, the consumption of all types of fermented food or drinks is prohibited, and the day before Pesach the family must fast as a tribute to the firstborn children who were spared from the tenth plague of Egypt.

For Christians, Easter means not only the death and the resurrection of Christ, but above all celebrating victory over death and hope in a new life. That is why the image of the rabbit is associated with Easter as a symbol of fertility and of many new lives and the egg, because it is an old tradition to paint empty eggs (symbol of rebirth) with bright colours.

In this tragic period of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, and each one of the survivors is a slave to social distance, masks that hide our faces, our identities and part of our body language and it is forbidden to travel, to be with friends and loved ones.

Regardless of our religions, let us all, Knights and Dames of St. John, feel in us the spirit of freedom and liberation that Passover and Hope give in victory over death, in salvation and in the many new lives given by Easter (Resurrection Sunday).

May we all be spared from the pandemic as the firstborn were spared from the last plague of Egypt.

Happy Easter, Good Pesach!

2nd April 2021