EASTER SUNDAY

Dear Parishioners, 
Have you ever realized something that has always been, that you’ve experienced all your life, and, suddenly, it’s like a light bulb goes off in your brain? Well, that happened to me this past Monday night as I began writing this article. From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday is 40 days, and from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday is 50 days – a total of 90 days or three months. I have never thought of this timeline before in all my 38 years of priesthood and 64 years of life! So for three months out of the year, we as Catholics focus on and celebrate Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection, also known as the “Paschal or Easter Mystery.” But that doesn’t mean that for the remaining nine months of the year that we don’t celebrate Christ’s dying and rising, but the Lent/ Easter/Ascension/Pentecost season is a continuous three-month journey which we enter each year in early spring, and we bloom at Easter when nature is literally blooming as well. The season of Advent/Christmas/ Epiphany is only about a third of the 90 days that I’ve just mentioned, yet the importance of the five weeks of beginning on the First Sunday of Advent are quite important as well in our spiritual journey throughout the calendar year. Since Ash Wednesday and Easter are “movable feasts,” unlike December 25th, sometimes Lent and Easter come upon us a little unexpectedly; however, our awareness of the great importance of Lent/Easter/Ascension/Pentecost is crucial to our lives as Catholic people no matter our age. We learn best by doing, and then by informing ourselves through reading, study, and interaction with our fellow Catholic brothers and sisters, especially in the celebration of the Sunday Mass. So much can be learned by consistent attendance and participation in this highest form of prayer that we can engage in. And why does the Church call us to be part of the Sunday celebration? Sunday is the day of the Resurrection – Alleluia!