Easter, also called Pascha, celebrates Jesus Christ’s Resurrection from the dead on the third day after his Crucifixion.
It is the oldest and most significant Holy Day in the Church, representing the fulfillment of God’s promises to man. It is the key to salvation and foreshadowed by the Jewish celebration of the Passover.
Raising from the dead was Jesus’ victory over evil, sin, and death and proved that He was the Son of God and that death is not the end. Easter gives Catholics hope that they too might have everlasting life.
The Easter Holy Day is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. It can fall between March 22 and April 25, coinciding with the Jewish Passover.
In the Catholic Church, the season of Easter continues for seven weeks, until Pentecost Sunday. The first eight days of Easter are called the Octave of Easter and celebrated together as one day.
Easter changes everything:
Share the good news:
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that He had to rise from the dead..
John 20: 3-9
The Resurrection is an anchor of hope:
Truly alive again through the power of God:
The Resurrection is a glorious miracle:
Easter morning brings us news that is ancient yet ever new: Christ is risen! The echo of this event, which issued forth from Jerusalem twenty centuries ago, continues to resound in the Church, deep in whose heart lives the vibrant faith of Mary, Mother of Jesus, the faith of Mary Magdalene and the other women who first discovered the empty tomb, and the faith of Peter and the other Apostles. Right down to our own time – even in these days of advanced communications technology – the faith of Christians is based on that same news, on the testimony of those sisters and brothers who saw firstly the stone that had been rolled away from the empty tomb and then the mysterious messengers who testified that Jesus, the Crucified, was risen. And then Jesus himself, the Lord and Master, living and tangible, appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and finally to all eleven, gathered in the Upper Room.
Pope Benedict XVI, Urbi et Orbi Message, 2011
The difference between Christian Easter and Jewish Passover:
“We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this day He has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.” The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross: Christ is risen from the dead! Dying, He conquered death; To the dead, He has given life.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 638
Easter lasts longer than a day:
Easter is a season of celebration:
The week after Easter is especially significant:
The Mass readings of the Easter season are special:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Christ at the center of their life:
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