Yesterday we celebrated the Octave of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday. It concludes an extraordinary week in the Church’s annual celebration of the Pascal Mystery of the Lord’s Resurrection. Let us consider its uniqueness and what it can teach us.
There are two interesting facts about the liturgy of last week that we can easily overlook. First, all the days of last week can be considered to be a single day. In other words, the one day of Easter extends over eight days in which to celebrate it! It is for this reason that each of these days is a Solemnity of the Lord, having precedence over every other celebration that would ordinarily fall on these days. In short, the importance of what happened on Easter morning is so great that it needs eight days in which to celebrate the single day of Easter.
It is also important to remember that the Easter season extends for 50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. During this season, 40 days after Easter Sunday, we celebrate the Lord’s Ascension into Heaven. It is an extended period of celebration in which we are asked to consider what it means to be a community of faith built upon the apostolic witness of the Lord’s death and Resurrection. Prominent in this reflection is the Acts of the Apostles, which is proclaimed as the First Reading of each Mass in this season. I highly recommend that a prayerful reflection upon this inspired book of Scripture written by Saint Luke can be a source of great spiritual fruitfulness for you and me.
Even though we are still observing a time of confinement in our homes, the joy of Easter is a gift that the Risen Lord still wishes to give us. His victory over sin, suffering, disease, and death is absolute and offered to us through His grace. Let us not lose our focus on the meaning of this season in the midst of our struggles, for by the Lord’s death and Resurrection, we have been set free.
The previous reflection originally appeared on Bishop Frank Caggiano’s Facebook page. Follow the Bishop for daily reflections and weekly videos.
