Holy Week & Easter
The Revival of the Soul
April 12, 2025
by Karin Wietrzykowski
Every Easter, Rudolf Steiner's Calendar of the Soul begins anew, offering powerful riddles to awaken the soul to an experience of the Divine. This masterful work is intricately woven to reflect the interaction of the seasons with human soul development. Do not mistake the Calendar for a lovely gesture of poetry or mere musings on nature. This unique composition contains formulae for the proper evolution of humanity.
These formulae for meditation do in all reality lead the soul out of its narrow confines to experience of the heavens. I can assure you that the results of long, long occult investigations are contained in these 52 verses which will enable the soul to find access to happenings in the great universe and thereby to experience the Spirits working in the onward flow of Time. But if you ponder on the texts of the verses in the Calendar you will discern an element of Timelessness, in rhythmic alternation, an element that is experienced inwardly by the human being, the laws of which run parallel to those of Time in the outer world. Mere analogies do not suffice here.
See Rudolf Steiner, GA 143, May 7, 1912, Cologne.
It is a moving calendar that flows with changing dates from one Easter to the next because "in what is uniform and fixed there is the impress of death; but in what is unequal there is life." In the dead of winter when cosmic forces retreat from the world, the soul awakens and strengthens itself like a seedling laden with snow. In the spring and summer, the human soul sleeps as nature blooms. The Event of Golgotha is "the most momentous of all" since time is to be computed as beginning "on a Friday in April in the year 33 A.D. when the Mystery of Golgotha took place" and "Ego-consciousness in the present sense was actually born." Out of the ultimate death, the possibility of new life arose in the Spirit.
This anthroposophical calendar holds such profound occult secrets to the universe that Rudolf Steiner needed to justify the deed of its disclosure. Published in the same year as the founding of the Anthroposophical Society in 1912, Steiner held the Calendar's intrinsic connection to all of anthroposophy required its sharing, stating: "It is not to be regarded as a sudden inspiration but as something organically connected with our whole Movement."
Holy Week
The last verse of The Calendar of the Soul, verse 52, is to be practiced during Holy Week before a new year begins with verse 1 on Easter. Emil Bock indicates in The Three Years that, while right living during the twelve days before Christmas strengthen us for the New Year, those who inwardly participate in the mystery drama of the Passion of Christ-Jesus are bestowed with "new forces for the whole of their future destiny."Our new translation of Verse 52 is outlined below in seven lines to both resound the biblical events of the Passion of Christ and reflect the spiritual forces at work behind the physical each day of the week. By meditating upon verse 52 during Holy Week, one may begin to experience a resurrection of the soul throughout the year.
Holy Week—Verse 52
| Day | Verse | Cosmic Influence | Biblical Events |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palm Sunday | Begin Week 52 verse—When from depths of soul | Sun/Sol - freedom, generosity, wisdom, enlightenment | Christ the Sun God enters Jerusalem humbly riding on a newborn colt. Ecstatic crowds gather in a frenzy of old pagan palm waiving symbolizing the Sun. (One-week later they will shout, “Crucify him!”) |
| Monday | Spirit turns to world existence | Moon – density, lunacy, confusion, materialism | Jesus overturns the tables of the vendors and money-changers in the Temple, spirit overturning worldly, material pursuits. |
| Tuesday | And beauty flows from space's wide expanse, | Mars – knightly discipline, courage & orderliness or cruelty and lawlessness; war-like | Christ’s power brings attack and outrage from the high priests, elders, Pharisees, and Sadducees. He counters them with parables and love. |
| Wednesday | Then draw from distant Heavens | Mercury – active power, temperamental, ability to divide and recombine like quicksilver | The turning point – Mary Magdeline anoints Jesus’ feet with precious oil and Judas becomes enraged and makes plans to betray Him. |
| Maundy Thursday | Force of Life in human bodies | Jupiter – tragic splendor, kingliness, magnanimity, festal joy | The last supper. Jesus washes the feet of the disciples. The bread and wine are given as the body and blood of Christ. |
| Good Friday | And mightily unite | Venus – love, union, beauty, creativity | Judas betrays Jesus. Jesus submits to arrest and flagellation in peace. The disciples hide and Peter denies Him. The crucifixion – the greatest love of God for humanity, Christ’s blood is united with the earth. Solar eclipse and earthquake. |
| Saturday | Spirit essence with Human Being | Saturn – death, treachery, sorrow, pestilence | Entombment and descent into hell to overcome the dragon. He who died on the cross entered the kingdom of the dead. |
| Easter Sunday | Begin Week 1—When out of widest worlds the Sun speaks to human senses, and joy from depths of Soul unites with light beholding ... | Sun/Sol rises anew as the Son of God—The Etheric Christ—ultimate freedom, generosity, wisdom and enlightenment | The resurrection – a new spiritual Sun is born in Man. Christ unites His "I" with the Earth so we may raise our egos and become one body of human brotherhood in Christ. Just as Mary Magdeline mistook the risen Christ for a gardener, the soul now beholds Him as the cultivator of a new Earth. |
Corresponding Verses
Rudolf Steiner marked each verse from Spring-Summer-Autumn (1-26) with a letter of the alphabet (a-z) and matched them with corresponding verses for Autumn-Winter-Spring (27-52). This pairing reveals a magnificent polarity of opposing forces that influence the soul striving through the seasons.
On Easter, we celebrate Christ, the Sun-God, arising from the dead of winter as the perfected Human Being, Christ-Jesus, who overcame earthly death so we too may have eternal life in Spirit. Thus, the first verse starts with Easter during the blossoming of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Since it is autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, Week 27 is the starting point on Easter Sunday. Traveling the path of a lemniscate, the spring and autumn equinoxes lie at the center where the corresponding verses cross at Easter and Michaelmas. During the Summer and Winter Solstices (and then St. John's Tide and Christmas), the corresponding verses land farthest from each other, always totaling 53.
Easter as an Inversion of the Passion
The corresponding verse for week 52 (Holy Week) is verse 1 (Easter) as illustrated above and further outlined below. A careful review of the original German text reveals the repetition and inversion of key words and phrases. This shadowing reflects the heavenly beauty flowing down to the human soul during the dark days of Holy Week (in the Northern Hemisphere) and then a pivot on Easter to the drawing forth of our spiritual nature as nature blooms in Spring.
| Holy Week - Verse 52 | Easter - Verse 1 |
|---|---|
| When from depths of soul | When out of widest worlds |
| Spirit turns to world existence | The Sun speaks to human senses |
| And beauty flows from space's wide expanse, | And joy from depths of Soul unites with light beholding, |
| Then draw from distant Heavens | Then draw from selfhood's sheath |
| Force of Life in human bodies | Thoughts into space's wide expanse |
| And mightily unite | And gropingly bind |
| Spirit essence with Human Being. | Human essence with Spirit Being. |
Polarity & Balance
Like two dancing partners mirroring one another, the corresponding verses reflect two sides of an infinity pattern. They reveal the opposing Luciferic impulses of summer, on one hand, and the Ahrimanic forces of winter, on the other. Christ Jesus is centered in the middle, balancing these polar forces as depicted in Rudolf Steiner's sculpture, The Representative of Man. In the First Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner intended to surround this central figure of the Christ with paintings and columns of cosmic forces streaming forth into the Human Being. In the same way, the planetary influences shine through the lines of each verse of The Calendar of the Soul, thereby enlivening us with Cosmic Wisdom. This wisdom from the invisible cosmic realms is carried by the divine feminine — Mary, Isis, Sophia — known by many names.
Thus, we have "Anthropos" or Man, Christ-Jesus, embodied here on earth (Western, material, masculine, Sun impulses) and "Sophia" or Cosmic Wisdom (Eastern, spiritual, feminine, moon impulses). Together, we have what Rudolf Steiner named, Anthroposophy: the Human Being filled with Cosmic Forces streaming forth into the world through our deeds. By contemplating The Calendar of the Soul verses throughout the year, we bring cosmic wisdom into our souls so we may raise ourselves from this deadened world to join our true place as Human Beings as the fourth Hierarchy of Heaven.
We welcome you to join us on this journey, beginning with verse 52 this Great and Holy Week and its corresponding verse 1 for Easter.
moreEaster
From Jesus to Christ
originally posted on March 30, 2023
This Eastertide, we highlight two lectures Steiner gave on 10-11 October 1911 pertaining to Christ’s resurrection. These are contained in GA 131, From Jesus to Christ, lectures VI and VII. There, Steiner masterfully explains the biblical account of the resurrection as a historical fact and discusses:
- The death and resurrection of Christ Jesus as the ‘highest initiation,’
- Christ as the ‘second Adam,’
- The rescue of the human Ego, and
- How mankind may be saved from continued devolution and ultimately, death itself.
Easter and the Mystery of Golgotha
originally posted on April 10, 2022
We invite you to read some of the many lectures Steiner gave regarding Easter. In his discussions about what he terms “the Mystery of Golgotha,” he shares the cosmic significance of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. You can find some of his selected works under the Festivals topic on the left-hand side navigation of our website. The excerpts presented here cannot begin to capture the profound teachings of Steiner on this topic. We merely share them as highlights to encourage you to explore the full lectures yourself.