By J.D. Long-García | April 14, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

For the 40 days of Lent, Catholics prepared for the resurrection of Christ through almsgiving, penance, fasting and prayer.

The faithful entered the penitential season by “giving up something for Lent” — from coffee and chocolate to worry and doubt — and abstained from meat on Fridays. But getting into the 50-day liturgical season of Easter might not be as easy.

“It’s a lot easier for us to understand and relate to the experience of suffering and death,” said Dominican Father Fred Lucci, director of All Saints Catholic Newman Center in Tempe.

“It’s a whole lot harder to experience the promise of the resurrection,” he added. “First of all, we don’t experience [resurrection] much in this life directly, so it’s hard to get our minds around that.”

A new season begins

One way to enter into the mystery of Easter is to be aware of the liturgical changes, according to Fr. Kenneth Fryar, FSSP, pastor of Mater Misericordiae Mission. His community celebrates the sacraments according to the 1962 Roman Missal.

“It’s up to each one of us to make that effort to continue our attention to the mysteries of the Church, not just say, ‘Oh well, we finished Lent, let’s go home now,’” he said.

During the community’s Lenten Masses, the organ is notably absent, along with the Gloria and “Alleluia.” But come Easter, they’re back, as well as white vestments to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord.

“St. Paul tell us that we should rejoice in the Lord always,” Fr. Fryar said. “Our faith is more about joy than it is about penance and sacrifice and all that. But of course, you can’t really have true joy without some of that sacrifice.”

Realizing the joy of Easter is part of the Catholic faith, according to Fr. Lucci.

“There will be times in our cycle — like ordinary time — when we go back to be fishermen,” he said. “And then we have Lent again next year, when we go through the penance and fasting. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to get to a point where we rejoice.”

If Catholics don’t celebrate the 50 days of Easter, they’ll miss out, he said.

“You can eat chocolate, eat meals, you celebrate the flowers and the life around us and rejoice,” he said. “If we don’t celebrate, we lose the perspective and the joy that allows us to live out our vocation.”

Becoming Easter people

Whereas Lent is about “waking up to a God of love,” Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio of Washington Theological Union said Easter is “the triumph of love over sin and death.”

“As Christians, we are supposed to be Easter people,” she said. “This time of the year is what the Christian life is about.”

In part, Sr. Ilia said being Easter people means loving others and “opposing political structures that oppress, opposing policies that marginalize or leave out the poor.” Catholics who live their faith in light of the resurrection aren’t afraid of standing on God’s side, often in opposition to many.

Loving others is a way to recognize the mystery of Easter in every day life, said Fr. Lucci from the Newman Center. He often asks those who come to him for spiritual direction to think of the person in their lives who is the hardest to love.

“Go out and love that person,” Fr. Lucci said. “In a sense, Easter is much about that. It’s not only rising from the dead. It’s becoming fully what God intended us to be. And that’s the image of God, which is nothing but love.”

Through death into life

If you think about it, dying and coming back from the dead three days later is pretty hard to believe. But it happened. Part of entering into the mystery of Easter is recognizing the reality of the resurrection.

“There must be something more than symbolism involved here, or it’s not something worth giving your life to,” said Franciscan Father Joe Schwab, executive director of the Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale.

“There needs to be a reality the symbolism points to,” he said. “There can be incredible changes through God’s grace. We can cooperate with grace and become stronger Christian people to face the difficulties of life that are going to come our way.”

Easter can also be a time to prepare for our own death and resurrection, Fr. Schwab said. During Easter, Catholics can change old habits and form new ones.

“Knowing Christ really leads us to new life,” he said. “Not just something different and exciting, but something totally unexpected.”

The way to this new, unexpected life is the way of Christ, Sr. Ilia explained. There is joy, but there’s also a cross.

“Jesus Christ is victorious in overcoming sin and death, but that means the way of the cross will travel through sin and death,” she said. “The very thing that will lead us to the light is the very thing that we resist. And it’s the paradox of Easter.”