For the past six weeks of Lent, we’ve been preparing for and building up to the celebration of the greatest event in Christianity, the celebration of Easter – when Christ defeated death by rising to new life. Whether we’ve been coming to daily Mass, praying or reading the Bible more, attending a bible study, making the Stations of the Cross, following Dynamic Catholic’s Best Lent Ever series or the daily readings from the Lenten meditation book, we’ve been highly engaged in faith activities during the Lenten Season. Even in our homes perhaps we’ve been preparing in all kinds of ways, cooking traditional Easter specialties, decorating or planting flowers, creating Easter baskets. Now that we’ve celebrated Easter Sunday, what’s next? While we have celebrated Easter Sunday, we have yet to fully celebrate Easter. St. Paul tells us that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, our faith is in vain. But, he says, “Now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,” (1 Cor. 15:20). In our Christian faith, the Resurrection of Christ from the dead is so significant so amazing, that we cannot confine its joy to just one day. For a full week following Easter (known as the Octave of Easter) we celebrate as if each of these days were Easter Sunday itself. In music, the octave of a note is the same tone, just eight musical steps of the scale lower or higher. The Octave of Easter is the same “note” as Easter itself. Often referred to as “Little Easter,” this Sunday is like celebrating Easter all over again. Yet even 8 days are not enough! The Easter Season is 50 days of celebrating this mind-blowing centerpiece of our Christian faith. Because we were united with Jesus in his dying and rising –the Paschal Mystery – through the waters of Baptism. “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:3). Today is also known as Divine Mercy Sunday, declared such by St. John Paul II while he was pope. Many of you may pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet which comes to us from St. Faustina Kowalska, and perhaps are finishing the Divine Mercy Novena today, which had begun on Good Friday. Today celebrates the abundant mercy of God, flowing from the pierced side of Christ as first shared with those disciples still huddled, locked in the Upper Room out of fear, following the crucifixion. They had betrayed Jesus, denied him, abandoned him, and then barricaded themselves in the very place where he had washed their feet and provided them with the gift of own his precious body and blood. But no lock, no barricaded door could keep the Lord’s mercy from them. According to John’s Gospel, Jesus appears, though the doors were locked and stands in their midst. I can’t begin to imagine how those first disciples felt – ashamed, embarrassed, maybe even fearful of what the Lord’s first words would be to them. Yet he does not berate them. Instead, he unlocks their hearts to receive the gift of Peace! He then instructs them to give that gift to others: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,” (cf. Jn. 20:19-23) In the early days of the Church and continuing even in our own time through the RCIA, we join those newly baptized at Easter in 50 days of “mystagogia” (interpretation of the mystery) unpacking the meaning of Easter. We will never completely comprehend in this life, how Christ’s passion, death and resurrection has changed our lives and world forever. However, we can at least begin to plumb the depths of this Easter mystery, understanding just a little bit more, its implications for us: eternal life!