Skip to main content

Easter: A Season of Great Joy.

Easter is not over! Lent, our preparation for Easter, lasts for 40 days. For 40 days we deny ourselves everything from candy to hot showers and even sleep. We are putting aside our creature comforts in order to bare our souls and make room for a greater relationship with our Lord. So intent, somber and focused is our preparation that even at Mass we omit the beautiful music of the Gloria and the Alleluia before the Gospel. The point is, Lent is a time of long and intense preparation for Easter.

So we spend all of this time, 40 days (46 counting the Sundays and Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday), preparing for the joy of Easter. When Easter Sunday comes in the church the penitential purple of Lent is taken down and replaced with the gold that signifies the great celebration that is the Easter Season.

What you will notice for the next 50 days when you are in church is that the gold remains. The church will remain decorated with the gold of great celebration because the celebration of Easter is not over. However, in day to day life it seems that the importance of Easter is lost. In fact, the world would have us believe that Easter is one Sunday a year when we hunt colored eggs and shove our faces with candy and then it is back to business as usual. Is this what we spent 40 days preparing for? Or could it be that we have forgotten something or been mislead?

Don't settle for the impostor that would have us believe that Easter is about bunnies and candy! Easter is much more than this. Easter is central to our faith. We are celebrating the Glorious Resurrection of the Lord in which he has defeated  our enemy sin and death. Our joy at this should know no bounds. Such an earth shattering thing this is, can we even fathom what it means? Let's look past how comfortable we have grown with the idea. Let us stop seeing it as something that we are detached from. Let's take a moment (or 50 days) and see Easter for what it is; a great thing the Lord has done!

Alleluia!
Labels:

Comments

Jenny R. Sherrill said…
I grew up in a church that celebrated Easter but no church seasons, no Lent, etc. For some that's okay (I guess), but I have really grown to love the process of Easter -- the progression through Lent, the removal of alleluia and the somber tone, the purple of Lent and the black of Good Friday leading to the glorious joy of Easter AND the Easter season. Christ is risen!!!
April 13, 2012 at 8:10 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2015 Valpo Half Marathon Race Report

This was my big tune-up race for the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. I always run a half-marathon at this point in the build up to the Monumental to get a final big fitness boost, a reality check on where I am at fitness-wise and, if all goes well, probably the most important aspect is the confidence boost that I get. I got one heck of a confidence boost yesterday, 10/25/2015, at the Valpohalf Half-marathon in Valparaiso IN. Valparaiso is about 2 hours from home which is kind of right there on the line of driving on race morning or staying in a hotel the night before. This time we decided to get up and drive. Valparaiso is on central time which puts it an hour behind us. Meaning the 8:30 AM start was really a 9:30 AM start for me.  Making the decision to drive that much easier. I have been dealing with some issues on the top of my right foot, which is probably extensor tendinitis, for the last couple of weeks. I saw my soft-tissue guy last Friday. He worked on it some and got me
4 comments
Read more

The Gosh Darn Tuesday Morning 15-Miler

What can you say about a 15-mile Tuesday morning run? I can say a lot. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I can say about a 15-mile Tuesday morning run on more 15-mile Tuesday Morning runs than I can count. You see, they are a main stay of the marathon training plan that I use. That plan being Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning 18 week 70-85 miles per week plan. The first thing I can say about the Tuesday morning 15-mile run is that it’s not a long run. Pete clearly defines long runs as starting at 16 miles. So, the 15-miler that begins so many Tuesdays of my life is not a long run. I mean, who ever heard of doing a “long run” on a Tuesday morning. That would just be insane. Being that it’s not a long run I can’t do all of the things that I do around a long run. I can’t obsess over the weather for the 15-miler, I can’t eat extra carbs in preparation for the 15-miler, I can’t expect my family to give me deference and make accommodations for me
Post a Comment
Read more

I Don't Get Anything out of Mass!

A homily that I heard once and some wisdom from an old friend I think really put the Mass and our participation in the Mass into perspective. I remember the homily began by the priest telling us that our parish had lost a family to a non-denominational church down the road. He said that this family actually came to him and said they were leaving and going to this other church for two reasons. The first was that the music was better. The second reason was because they didn't feel like they got anything out of Mass. At this point I remembered something a friend once said that made a lasting impact on me. She said essentially, "I don't come to Mass for the music or for the homily or for anything other than Jesus. I come because Jesus is here in the Eucharist." I wish that those people had known my friend. Because there is no where that you can go to be so close to our Lord as you are when you receive Holy Communion at Mass. The priest reiterated this sentiment and th
2 comments
Read more