Easter Sunday

Easter is the greatest feast in the Christian calendar. On this Sunday, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. For us, Easter Sunday comes at the end of 40 days of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in Lent. Through spiritual struggle and self-denial, we have prepared ourselves to die spiritually with Christ on Good Friday, the day of His Crucifixion, so that we can rise again with Him in new life on Easter.

Easter is a day of celebration because it represents the fulfilment of our faith as Christians. St. Paul wrote that, unless Christ rose from the dead, our faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:17). Through his death, Christ saved mankind from bondage to sin, and He destroyed the hold that death has on all of us; but it is His Resurrection that gives us the promise of new life, both in this world and the next.

That new life began on Easter Sunday. In the Our Father, we pray that "Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven." And Christ told His disciples that some of them would not die until they saw the Kingdom of God "coming in power" (Mark 9:1). The early Christian Fathers saw Easter as the fulfilment of that promise. With the resurrection of Christ, God's Kingdom is established on earth, in the form of the Church.

Today we remember our New Life in Christ through the renewal of our Baptismal Promises. Let us also pray for those who throughout the Catholic Church have been received into the Church at this Paschal time.

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