Easter goes on and on

Easter time is the longest season of the Christian Church Year. These weeks following the Resurrection of Jesus are prolonged so that we all may realize how important the fact of faith that Jesus rose from the dead is to our faith.

This Easter event calls for a celebration that continues for many weeks. In fact, Easter is the reason for each Sunday’s celebration recalling the Resurrection. We dare to pray in the Responsorial Psalm, “Lord, let your face shine on us.” Knowing that we have a friend and an advocate in the Risen Lord Jesus, who paid the ultimate price for our sins and the sins of the whole world, He is now at the right hand of the Father. We turn in faith, hope and love for His guidance.

During this Easter season, we do not have an Old Testament reading, but rather readings from the Acts of the Apostles, which is like reading a diary of the early church to motivate the church of today into action. Today, Peter explains to his Jewish audience that what had been told by the prophets throughout the centuries came to fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus was then and now the suffering servant of the Father, who suffered, died and rose again for all of us.

A bumper sticker on a car in a church parking lot read: “There Is Only One God! Quit Applying For His Position!”

The way to heaven is not a street we can walk or drive down. Rand McNally Maps or Google or asking Alexa will not tell us how to get there. The way to heaven is a person; it is Jesus Himself – the way, the truth and the life. Through and in Jesus, one comes to eternal life. What we think or what we know about Jesus or even what we believe in Him in the end is of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do with following Him! We can hope and trust that in the end, our compassionate love and forgiveness will overcome human fickleness and violence. However, this will most likely happen if each one of us just makes an effort to allow the new light of our Easter candle and the renewed Baptismal Promises, made to get us to act as Christ bearers each day, continues.

Each of us in our own small way must be generous in forgiving and loving and we will bring about transformation and conversion in our own way. Just keep alert to doing and being a person who acts like Jesus!

It is not easy to live eternal, resurrection, eulogy virtues. The earthly virtues and the people-to-people smallness can snuff out the Easter Candle and leave us in darkness. The eulogy virtues are ones people will talk about you after you die. These are kindness, bravery, forgiveness, fidelity, deep love. All are virtues that reach out beyond us.

These are skills and virtues that must, like Easter, go on and on in our daily life.