Isn’t Easter Over?
During the recent school holidays, Catholics celebrated Easter Sunday on 21 April. Easter is the celebration of Christ's resurrection from the dead and marks the end of Holy Week, the end of Lent, the last day of the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday). It is the most important day on the Christian calendar.
Upon our return to school, we held an Easter Liturgy which caused some students to remark, “Isn’t Easter over?”. The answer is no. Easter Sunday also begins the season of Easter, one of the longest season in the liturgical year of the Catholic Church. Because Easter is the most important feast in the Christian calendar, even more important than Christmas, the Easter season continues on for 50 days, through the Ascension of Our Lord to Pentecost Sunday, seven full weeks after Easter Sunday!
Hence, we are encouraged to keep on celebrating Easter over the next few weeks. As St John Chrysostom announces in this famous Easter sermon, all are invited to the feast:
"Let all then enter the joy of Our Lord!
Both the first and the last, and those who come after, enjoy your reward!
Rich and poor, dance with one another, sober and slothful,
celebrate the day.
Those who have kept the fast and those who have not, rejoice today, for the table is richly spread.
Fare royally upon it-the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry.
All of you, enjoy the banquet of faith!
All enjoy the riches of His goodness.
Let no one cry over his poverty, for the universal Kingdom has
appeared!
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again, for
forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let none fear death, for the death of our Saviour has set us free.