EASTER COMMUNION: The celebration of the Lord's Supper early became one of the chief of the rites connected with Easter. Those who had become cold and lax in their attention on religious ceremonies felt that they must, on Easter, if at no other time, commune. In the council held in the Lateran in Rome in 1215, that which had become a practise was made an obligation, and the twenty-first canon of this council reads thus: "Every believer, of either sex, who has come to years of discretion, must at least once a year confess honestly his sins to his own priest and perform the penance which may be enjoined as far as he is able, and at least on Easter solemnly receive the Eucharist, unless his priest out of sufficient grounds has forbidden its reception. Whoever refuses so to do will be excluded from the Church, and on death be refused Christian burial.” Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, v. 888.