Diocese of Tyler Bishop Joseph Strickland recently took to social media to celebrate the start of the Easter season. 

“Let us proclaim ‘He is Risen’ throughout this Octave & for the entire Easter Season of 50 days until Pentecost,” Strickland wrote in a Twitter post on April 10. “Easter is not just a day but Jesus’s Resurrection ushers in a New Day for all humanity for all time. Let us strive to live in the Light of His Resurrection always!”

Easter Sunday marks the start of the Easter season, the lengthiest season on the Church calendar spanning 50 days. The celebration begins with Easter Sunday festivities and continues through the Easter Octave until Divine Mercy Sunday, according to National Catholic Register. Some traditions associated with the event are wearing new clothing for Easter Sunday, families taking walks through town following Mass, and Easter Monday as a holy day of obligation.

The Lenten fast lasts 40 days, excluding Sundays, which is shorter than the 50-day Easter season. This is a testament to the Easter season's enduring nature, as the Anglican Compass states. Jesus declared that fasting would eventually fade away, and the Great Feast of the Lamb, signifying eternity, would remain. After Jesus' resurrection, he spent 40 days on earth before ascending, and another 10 days passed before the Day of Pentecost arrived. Ascension Day always occurs on a Thursday.

“As Jesus was raised from the dead, we walk with confidence, in what St. Paul called ‘newness of life,’ following in Jesus’ footsteps, our lives now an adventure destined for heaven and the love that never ends,” Archbishop José Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles wrote in the Angelus News. “These next 50 days, from Resurrection Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, are meant to be lived as one long feast, a ‘great Sunday,’ as the Church Father St. Athanasius put it.”