Easter Sunday Mass at St. Vincent de Paul Church is 10 AM on April 21, 2019. An Easter brunch for all follows.
Is Easter Over?
No! Easter is a season just like Lent. Lent is a season of preparation in which we make sacrifices to and do things to draw closer to God and be in right relationship with God in anticipation of rejoicing at Easter. Easter is the most important day in the liturgical year. It i
s a celebration of the triumph of life (God’s saving activity through Jesus’ death and resurrection) over death (sin). And so we celebrate that fact for 50 days. The Easter season, then, culminates in Pentecost, the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. Pentecost is known as the birthday of the Church.
Easter is not the celebration of a past event. The alleluia is not for what was; Easter proclaims a beginning which has already decided the remotest future… Jesus acted and suffered this history of his, attained perfect fulfillment, where everything abides, nothing is lost, and everything is disclosed as meaningful and glorious. This end, which is the beginning of the fulfillment of all things, has arrived and has manifested itself to humanity still advancing through history just as the front of a procession which has reached the goal calls back with cries of triumph to those still marching: we are there, we have found the goal and it is what we hoped it would be.
—Karl Rahner, “Easter: The Beginning of Glory” in The Great Church Year
