I’m prepared for the fact that a lot of people might not agree with some of the things I say in this one. I don’t know if my beloved will totally agree on some of these things so you know I’m taking a chance here.
First off, depending upon when you are reading this, Happy Easter, everyone. Welcome to the greatest day of the year.
If you have a couple of days to go yet, it’s coming, you got this.
Easter is a time to feast and celebrate. It’s a time to be joyful — or maybe glorious — in the Resurrection of the Lord and the hope of the resurrection to come at the end of the age.
That’s certainly a lot of reasons to be happy and make the most of it.
This time of the year is so great that the whole week of the Easter Octave is treated like eight days of Easter.
Meat on Easter Friday for everyone!
No one, especially me, is arguing that this time isn’t the best thing ever. Christ rising from the dead was the best thing ever. There’s a lot to be happy about.
That being said . . .
We are still human. We are still not perfect. We are still in the time before the end times. Easter does not mean “anything goes” and do whatever we want as much as we want.
As I’ve written before, I don’t like using weight loss as a metric for measuring how well your Lent went but it’s a simple example that’s somewhat effective for making my point.
Say you ate healthy and did other healthy things and lost 10 pounds during Lent. Good job.
Now comes Easter. It’s time to eat. It’s time to eat all of those things that you missed devouring and couldn’t wait for that lovely Sunday morning to arrive.
You eat and you eat. A couple of days pass and it’s still Easter so you eat some more. After a surprisingly short amount of time, you’ve gained 11 pounds.
You’re at a higher number than you were on Ash Wednesday. You met your Lenten goal but you ended up losing all of the progress that you made during the penitential six weeks.
The same can happen to your prayer life after Easter Sunday. You can find yourself not doing the “extra” prayer time you practiced during Lent and even cutting back on your normal prayer efforts all in the interest of “celebrating” and “feasting”. You’re having a good time but your prayer progress has slipped.
You could find yourself making excuses to justify not doing the minimum or even doing less than you were before, thinking things like “It’s Easter, I don’t have to do that” or “It’s Easter, I can do this now”.
Celebrate by doing God’s will
What am I giving you to think about? It is totally OK to limit your feasting for Easter or do it prudently.
A similar argument comes up during Lent when there is a solemnity or when Sundays happen.
Some people, probably someone whose name rhymes with “Devin,” will look at a Lent Sunday as a “cheat day” and won’t scale back from their Lenten practices (usually involving food) because “Our Lord and Savior didn’t come out from the desert every seven days to eat”.
Yet, some will say that fasting when you should be feasting is as bad as feasting when you should be fasting.
My journalism degree isn’t smart enough to know how to respond to that so I defer to the theology majors in the audience.
This brings us back to Easter and the Easter Octave. Is it really feasting if it’s hurting you?
Easter shouldn’t be a time to say that you don’t have to fast anymore, that you don’t have to give alms anymore, or that you don’t have to pray anymore.
Lent should be the time when you put a new emphasis on those things — maybe more than you normally would — to strengthen them through Easter and beyond.
Look at it this way. If you normally prayed for 15 minutes a day and you prayed for an hour a day during Lent, start praying for 30 minutes a day once Easter arrives.
Lent was a time to stretch your prayer muscles and leave yourself in a better position than you were before Lent.
If you made a donation to something worthy once a week during Lent, instead of your “I should do that sometime” before Lent, give once a month during the non-Lent months.
You’re better than you were before Lent and not being all “super Lent” about it.
It can be done. There is a middle ground between doing nothing and treating all 52 weeks of the year like they are Lent.
If you’re not in a place to do it all like this yet, either remember these ideas for next Lent or find little ways to stretch those faith muscles now.
I know we can say that Easter was made for man not man made for Easter but we are still called to love God and neighbor no matter what time of the year it is.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.