The fifty days

For Easter Sunday and the season that follows.

Easter is not a day but a season — fifty days, longer than Lent, ending at Pentecost. The Church spends more of the year rejoicing than repenting, which is worth remembering in February.

Easter Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,
You walked out of a sealed tomb
and the world has never been the same.

Raise what is dead in me:
the hope I gave up on,
the relationship I wrote off,
the part of myself I decided was beyond fixing.

You did not come back as a ghost or a memory.
You came back with a body, and ate breakfast with Your friends.
Make my faith that solid. Amen.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Regina Caeli

From Easter Sunday to Pentecost, the Regina Caeli replaces the Angelus at morning, noon and evening — the Church’s way of standing up for fifty days.

The Easter Season

• Easter Sunday — the Resurrection.
• Divine Mercy Sunday — the Second Sunday of Easter.
• Ascension — forty days after Easter.
• Pentecost — fifty days after, the close of the season.

About This Season

The Alleluia, buried since Ash Wednesday, comes back at the Vigil and is sung relentlessly for fifty days. If Lent was serious, Easter should be visibly different — flowers, feasting, a table with people around it. The Church fasts hard, but she also knows how to keep a party going for seven weeks.