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Easter spirituality

The celebration of Easter extends for fifty days - from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday - and are celebrated as one 'Great Sunday'.

Tertullian (c. 200 AD) called this fifty days a laetissimum spatium, a “most joyous space”. Other writers from 200 to 400 AD, including Saints Basil, Athanasius and Jerome, see it as a joyous time filled with the presence of the glorified Lord and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Only when pilgrims began to visit Jerusalem (around 400 AD), and wanted to hold celebrations on the day and at the place where the original event happened did the distinct feasts of Pentecost and Ascension begin to emerge.

The Liturgical Calendar revised after Vatican II (14-2-1969) aims to restore this fifty days of joy. It says in par 22: “The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are celebrated in joyful exultation as one feast day, or better as one ‘great Sunday’ (Athanasius, Festal Letter 1, PG 26:1366). These above all others are the days for the singing of the Alleluia".

Here we present articles of Easter spirituality.
 
Sections

Articles
A fifty day celebration
This is an extract from "Those Three Days: A resource for the celebration of the Easter Triduum", by John McCann and Pat O'Donoghue. It highlights some suggestions for the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost. ....
Come and have breakfast!
"Come and have breakfast" are homely words that engage us easily. Brendan Clifford OP uses them to set the scene for this "lectio divina". ....
Resurrection man
This month (April 2008) the Pope asks us to pray 'that Christians may never tire of proclaiming in their lives Christ's resurrection, the source of hope and peace'. Fr Jim Corkery SJ explains. ....
 
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