As we approach Easter, it is good to focus first on the great joy and great adventure of this season. Easter is a beautiful time in our lives, a time when we become clearer about our meaning and purpose. We are an Easter people, and we know that Good Friday was not the end of the story.

This time of preparation, the Lenten season, has once again been a valuable opportunity — for me, and I hope for the people of this Diocese — to take time for an honest appreciation of where we are at. But the great gift of the Easter story is not just reflection on the present; it is the reminder of where we are going. Even in death, our lives are changed, not ended. Easter is a profound message of hope, a message that feels especially important in the world now. Easter renews our awareness that life has meaning and purpose, and that this is expressed most clearly in the great mysteries we celebrate during the Easter liturgy.

One of the things that often strikes me is that although we spend six weeks journeying toward Easter Sunday, the Church actually gives us the Octave of Easter — eight days, where each day is celebrated as Easter Sunday. We can sometimes be inclined to celebrate Easter Sunday and then move on. This year, especially in Palmerston North, we are making a conscious effort to celebrate Easter fully throughout the Octave (Easter Monday through to Divine Mercy Sunday) with flowers, candles, and the full repertoire of the Church’s liturgy.

More broadly again, the Easter season itself lasts for fifty days, right through to Pentecost. Perhaps we shorten Easter too much. It is a beautiful time, a wonderful season for the Church, and one that truly gives us life.

Easter is also absolutely central to where we are heading as a people of faith, because it reminds us that even death is not the end. Our lives have meaning and purpose beyond this world. I have been thinking a lot about the image of the head and the body: where the head is, the body must also be. Christ is the head of the Church — its head and its husband — and the Church is his bride. Head and body, bride and groom, belong together.

So where do we find the head? Without the head, the body cannot live. We find Christ, the head of the Church, in the Eucharist. There, Christ comes to us, nourishing and feeding us from the altar, most excellently in the Most Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist is deeply an Easter sacrament. It gives us direction and life. Christ is not passive in the Eucharist — there is a real dynamism. He animates us and gives meaning and purpose to our lives.

The Easter season and the Eucharist are inseparable. Christ nourishes us so that we may live as Easter people.

On behalf of myself, the Catholic Bishop of Palmerston North, and all those who work for the Diocese, I wish you a joyful Easter — not only Easter Day, but a joyful Easter season. May we show the world that, despite all the pressures and challenges we face, Easter is far beyond our wildest imaginings.

+John