In the Western Church, Lent will begin tomorrow. The earliest Lent can begin is February 4 and the latest is March 5. This is caused by the fact that Easter is a moveable feast based on the lunar calendar of the Jews. Easter Sunday in the Western Church is observed on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) after the ecclesiastical vernal equinox which the Church sets as March 21. The ecclesiastical full moon does not necessarily coincide with astronomical events and is calculated on a 19 year cycle. Why the difference between the Eastern Church and the West in calculating Easter? Primarily because the East uses the Julian calendar for the calculation and the West uses the Gregorian calendar, although in calculating Easter nothing is simple and the history of the calculations is fascinating and baroque.
If it is “baroque,” maybe it should be fixed…
Easter is always.. the first Sunday.. after the 1st full Moon.. after the Spring Equinox. Four days from Ash Wednesday (tomorrow) it will be Sunday and six weeks from this coming Sunday it will be Easter (6×6=36 +4 = 40)
If you want a solution ask an engineer, if you want a puzzle ask a mathematician.
The liturgical year refects the complexity and the precise order of the starry firmament above us. The sun, the moon, the planets and asteroids, the stars, the far off galaxies and the black holes and quasars show forth the beauty of the One who made them and set them on their courses.
Even the comets and the transient meteors are part of what we see in the night sky, whether we gaze with the naked eye, or if we analyze data from the James Webb telescope.
The liturgical year is in harmony with nature, and it instructs us about the supernatural events of our faith.
The date of Easter, the anniversary of the dedication of a church, the annual memorial of the martyrdom of thousands of saints, and the dating of the years, “Anno Domini,” are all part of the mystery of our faith, and they lead us to God.
There is a fascinating book called The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories which details the history of Churches in the late middle ages/early modern period being constructed with observational apparatus, which was at least somewhat motivated (at least initially) by coming up with a more accurate calculation of Easter.
https://a.co/d/0026ckZH