Christ is risen, Alleluia!

Today, the entire Christian world rejoices and sings Alleluia to the King! for Jesus who gave His life for us has truly risen.

Both the Roman and the Eastern Catholic Church rejoice at the Resurrection of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Yes, we have been redeemed by the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. The mystery of our Faith, our Salvation. Saint Athanasius calls Easter “the Great Sunday,” and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week “the Great Week.”

In our Liturgy on Easter Sunday, we all renew our baptismal promises, and we renounce sin and reject Satan, all his lies, and all his empty promises. And we start a new life as Christians.

Easter is a time of rejoicing and thanksgiving because Jesus has risen from the dead as He had promised. And Easter also teaches that death has no more power over Jesus. His own prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven,” begins to be fulfilled on Easter Sunday.

Our professor, Father Louis Vuadi, CICM, said new converts are traditionally brought into the Church through the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Eucharist) at the Easter Vigil service on the evening of Holy Saturday. Their baptism parallels Christ’s own Death and Resurrection, as they die to sin and rise to new life in the Kingdom of God.

During Christmas, we celebrate God’s providence when He sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to earth as the Savior of the world. During Easter, we celebrate God’s love, shown through Jesus’s death on the cross, and His power, demonstrated through Jesus’s resurrection, overcoming sin and death forever.

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday (when Jesus made his final entrance into Jerusalem) and culminates with Easter Sunday. As Holy Week progresses to its final days, the solemnity heightens.

The most solemn part of the liturgical year is the three-day period referred to as the Easter Triduum, also known as the Sacred Triduum or Paschal Triduum.

The Sacred Triduum is one great festival recounting the last three days of Jesus’ life on earth, the events of his Passion and Resurrection, when the Lamb of God laid down his life in atonement for our sins.

It is not three separate liturgies. This is best seen when all three days are celebrated physically in the same church.

It is known as the Paschal Mystery because it is the ultimate fulfillment of the ancient Jewish Passover (or Pasch), a recollection of how God brought the Jews out of their slavery in Egypt.

The spotless lamb was slaughtered for the Passover meal, which was consumed that same night. The destroying angel “passed over” the homes marked with the blood of the Passover Lamb, and those covered by the Blood were saved.

The Paschal Mystery is, therefore, God’s plan of redemption for the fallen human race through the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the God-Man Jesus Christ. It is one marvelous event stretched out over three days.

On Holy Thursday, the Church relives the institution of the Eucharist, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the priesthood during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.

The Good Friday ceremony is not a Mass; it is a communion service that uses the consecrated hosts from Holy Thursday. Good Friday is the only day of the year on which no Masses are offered.

There is no daytime Mass on Holy Saturday. It is still a day of fasting and sorrow before the Easter Vigil begins that evening. The Christian faithful often continue their Good Friday fast through Holy Saturday.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls Jesus’s descent into the realm of the dead “the last phase of Jesus’s messianic mission,” during which he “opened heaven’s gates to the just who had gone before Him.” Before Holy Saturday, no souls enjoyed the beatific vision of God in heaven.