EASTER

The whole Month of April is dedicated to Easter- the single most important feast day of the Church, the sacred and the great Sunday of the Pasch on which we celebrate the life-giving Resurrection of our Lord and God, the Savior Jesus Christ. With Christ's death and resurrection, Christ has conquered sin and death; the gates of heaven are now open to man. Easter marks the central faith confession of the early church and was the focal point for Christian worship, observed on the first day of each week since the first century.

Easter as an annual celebration of the Resurrection that lies at the center of a liturgical year has been observed at least since the fourth century. Even in churches that traditionally do not observe the other historic seasons of the church year, Easter has occupied a central place as the high point of Christian worship. This feast is movable and the date is determined by a system based on a lunar calendar adapted from a formula decided by the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. During this time worshippers are called to celebrate God's ongoing work in the world through his people, and to acknowledge and reflect upon the their purpose, mission, and calling as God’s people, which makes Red an appropriate color for this season.

During the Easter Sunday, one of the Easter Masses is solemnly sung. The Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist are different from the usual masses. Instead of the Profession of Faith, the sequence is said and the congregation renews their baptism promises. The sanctuary colors of for Easter are white and gold. White symbolizes the hope of the resurrection, the purity and newness that comes from victory over sin and death while gold signifies the light of the world brought by the risen Christ that enlightens the world and the exaltation of Jesus as Lord and King.

The whole seven-week season of Easter called Eastertide, the Great Fifty Days, commence at sundown the evening before Easter Sunday (the Easter Vigil). The Easter Vigil marks the end of the celebration of Holy Week and beginning of a new season of grace and a time of joy and thanksgiving. The dramatic vigil is divided into four parts: service of light, liturgy of the Word, liturgy of Baptism and liturgy of the Eucharist.
Throughout the joyful exultation of Eastertide, the moral requirements of the new life are recalled. They are governed by the principle enunciated by St. Paul that, risen with Christ, the Christian must raise his desires to heaven, detach himself from earthly pleasures in order to love those of heaven. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to complete the formation in the baptized of the "new man" who, by the holiness of his life, bears witness to Christ crucified.
The first eight days of the Easter Season make up the octave of Easter and are celebrated as solemnities of the Lord. The Sundays of this season rank as the paschal Sundays and, after Easter Sunday itself, are called the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Sundays of Easter. The period of fifty sacred days ends on Pentecost Sunday. The Pentecost Sunday commemorates the giving of the Holy Spirit to the apostles, the beginnings of the Church and its mission to every tongue and people and nation.

"Did not our hearts burn while he opened to us the scriptures" Luke 24:13-35

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emma'us, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cle'opas, answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since this happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see." And he said to them, "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?" And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them, who said, "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.