Fifty glorious days

Fifty glorious days, from Easter Sunday all the way to Pentecost. For fifty days, the Church feasts. For fifty days, she sings alleluia. For fifty days, she lives in the joy of the Resurrection as if it just happened, because in every Eucharist, in a very real sense, it does.

Consider what that tells us. We spent forty Lenten days fasting and preparing for Easter. The feast gets fifty days of celebration. The Resurrection wins. The joy is longer than the sorrow! That is not an accident. That is theology, beautifully baked right into the structure of the year.

During Eastertide, the Church dwells in the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension, the days when Jesus appeared to His disciples after rising from the dead. Then came the final ten days, from Ascension until Pentecost, when the disciples waited and prayed together in the upper room for the promised Holy Spirit. This is the story the Church invites us to inhabit each year.

The fifty days of Eastertide give us unhurried time to sit with the stories of the risen Christ. Work through them slowly across the season:
·       Mary Magdalene at the tomb — John 20:11–18
·       The road to Emmaus — Luke 24:13–35
·       Jesus appears to the disciples — John 20:19–23
·       Doubting Thomas — John 20:24–29
·       Breakfast on the shore — John 21:1–14
  
Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation