Happy Easter everyone!  If you were like me, Easter day is usually a relaxing conclusion to a long season of Lent of sacrifices and penance, which is an appropriate way of celebrating the fulfillment of Christ’s Resurrection.  The beauty of our Church is that Easter is not just one day; it is an entire season!  The season of Easter lasts for 50 days (which is meant to be longer than the 40 days of Lent to show it is more important), and it lasts from Easter Sunday until Pentecost.  What is even more beautiful is that the celebration of Easter is deemed so important we will celebrate over the next eight days during what is called the Octave of Easter.  If you remember from my Turn 4 article in December, there are two feasts in our Church that are so important that we celebrate them over eight days: Christmas and Easter. The reason is because these feasts are critical to our faith, which celebrate the Incarnation and the Resurrection.

The purpose of the Octave of Easter is to celebrate each day as a ‘little Sunday’ and as a solemnity.  In fact, it is one of the few times outside of Sunday Masses we will say the Gloria to show significance to the solemnity.  The term octave comes from the Latin word octava, which means eight.  It developed out of the practice of a Jewish boy being circumcised eight days after his birth.  This practice links the octave directly to Christmas, but it also links it with Easter in a special way. Baptism is our birth into the Church, and as many of you saw on the Easter Vigil, the blessing of the waters of baptism occur on Easter and new members of the church would typically be baptized at Easter as new creations. The idea of becoming new creations in Christ creates the eighth day of creation, for as God in Genesis creates the world in seven days, the Resurrection is the eighth day shown in the sacramental sign of Baptism. In fact, eight is such an important number for new creation and baptism, many baptism founts (including ours) is shaped like an octagon symbolizing the eighth day of creation.

The Octave of Easter concludes on the following Sunday of Easter, which is also called Divine Mercy Sunday.  The devotion to Divine Mercy developed from St. Faustina based on her visions and conversations with Jesus.  With her being from Poland, St. John Paul II was familiar with the devotion and instituted the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy.  Beginning on Good Friday and concluding this Sunday, we are praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  I encourage everyone to pray during the novena to prepare for the conclusion of the Octave of Easter as well as to receive the indulgence attached to the conclusion of the novena.

As you can see, Easter is more than just the day Christ was resurrected. It is an octave and a season in that we continue on with the Easter message to grow as an Easter people.  Let us thank the Lord for the life He brings through His Resurrection and let us enter into the Octave of Easter during the coming week.