Easter Sunday proclaims one claim above all others: Christ is risen. Everything else in the Christian year leans on that truth.
Easter Sunday is not merely one holy day among many. It is the principal feast of the ecclesiastical year—the summit toward which Holy Week ascends and the source from which the entire Easter season flows. Christians celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion, a claim so central that Saint Paul insists: without the Resurrection, faith collapses into wishful thinking.
Liturgically, Easter brings Lent to its fulfillment and crowns the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday). It also opens the Easter season, which runs for fifty days, culminating in Pentecost. In Catholic practice, Easter is a Holy Day of Obligation—because the Church is not celebrating a mood. She is announcing a victory.
The Church speaks of Easter in superlatives for a reason. Pope Leo I called it the festum festorum—the “Feast of Feasts”—because the Resurrection stands at the center of everything the Church believes and celebrates. If Christmas proclaims that God entered human history, Easter proclaims that death has been defeated within it.
In 2026, Easter Sunday falls on April 5. Yet the power of Easter does not rest on a date. It rests on a declaration: evil does not get the final word, sin does not define the human story, and death does not end it.
All four Gospels converge on the heart of Easter morning: the tomb is empty, and Christ is risen. The accounts vary in details—who arrives first, how the angels are described, which words are emphasized—but the central proclamation does not shift. The Resurrection is not treated as metaphor or private inspiration; it is announced as an event.
Easter is the Church’s oldest feast, celebrated from the earliest generations of Christians. By the mid-second century, it is clearly established as a defining annual observance. It also acts like a hinge between the Old and New Testaments: the story of Israel is not discarded—it is fulfilled.
The link to Jewish Passover is not accidental. Jesus dies during Passover, and the New Testament identifies Him as the true Paschal Lamb. The Easter Vigil still echoes the Exodus—deliverance, water, fire, and freedom—now proclaimed through Christ’s victory over sin and death.
Unlike Christmas, Easter is a movable feast. It is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, which places it between March 22 and April 25. This ancient calculation—often called the computus paschalis—does more than pick a date; it sets the rhythm for the Church’s entire movable calendar.
Early Christians debated whether Easter should be kept on the 14th of Nisan (the Passover date) or always on Sunday. The Quartodecimans favored the former, while Rome and Alexandria favored Sunday celebration. What looks like a calendar argument was really a question of unity: could the Church proclaim one Paschal mystery with one voice?
The Council of Nicaea (325) helped standardize Easter’s Sunday celebration throughout the Church. Proposals for a fixed Easter date arise occasionally even today, but the traditional computation remains in place—anchoring Easter to both creation’s cycles and the Church’s worship.
The Easter Vigil is the Church’s most solemn liturgy. Celebrated after nightfall, it begins with the Paschal Candle, moves through sweeping readings of salvation history, renews baptismal promises, and often includes baptisms and receptions into the Church. It feels like what it is: the night the world changes.
Easter Sunday continues the celebration in daylight with Masses focused on joy rather than penitence. The Church does not ask the faithful to “be sad but grateful.” She commands rejoicing—because the Resurrection is victory, not a coping mechanism.
Saint John Chrysostom’s Paschal preaching captures the Church’s Easter tone: everyone is invited to the feast of mercy—those who fasted and those who struggled to. The point is not perfect performance. The point is Christ’s triumph.
The Easter season lasts fifty days, culminating in Pentecost. Along the way, the Church celebrates the Ascension (traditionally forty days after Easter), proclaiming that the risen Christ reigns—not as a memory, but as Lord.
In many families, Easter includes meals, flowers, and the joyful breaking of Lenten disciplines. These customs can drift toward the secular, sure—but they began from a deeply Christian instinct: joy should be embodied, not merely discussed.
Eggs have long symbolized new life emerging from what appears lifeless, which pairs naturally with Resurrection language. The Easter Bunny is later folklore, often used to create child-friendly excitement. It can be harmless fun—so long as it doesn’t replace what Easter actually is.
Easter is the axis of the Christian year. Every movable feast—Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, Sacred Heart—depends on it. Remove Easter, and you don’t just lose one holiday. You lose the organizing center of Christian worship.
The Resurrection does not erase suffering; it transforms the meaning of suffering. Christ does not avoid death—He passes through it and changes it from the inside.
Easter Sunday does not ask to be admired. It demands to be believed. The Church sets aside fasting, throws open the doors of mercy, and announces joy—not because life is easy, but because death has been conquered.
Every year, Easter returns not as repetition but as reminder: Christian hope does not rest on optimism, progress, or human effort. It rests on an empty tomb—and that changes everything.
This reflection is written in continuity with Sacred Scripture, the Church’s liturgical tradition, and the teaching authority of the Catholic Church—meant for prayer, learning, and faithful parish life.
Easter is not presented here as theory or symbol, but as the living center of the Church’s faith, worship, and hope.
Easter Sunday is the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is the central feast of the Christian faith and the heart of the Church’s liturgical year.
Because the Resurrection of Christ defeats sin and death. Without Easter, the Christian faith would have no foundation or hope.
Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, placing it between March 22 and April 25.
The Easter Triduum is the Church’s three-day celebration of the Paschal Mystery: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.
The Easter Vigil is the most solemn liturgy of the year, featuring the Paschal Candle, Scripture readings, baptismal renewal, and often the initiation of new Catholics.
Yes. Easter Sunday is a Holy Day of Obligation and the most important Sunday in the Catholic calendar.