Sixth Sunday of Easter
TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION
	Why is it still Easter? The lilies have long since faded. The roots of our tradition of fifty days of rejoicing from Easter to Pentecost lie in the seven-day rhythm of the Jewish week, drawn from the six days of creation plus a Sabbath day. A favorite name for the Lord’s Day among our ancestors in the faith was “The Eighth Day,” meaning that in Christ a breakthrough to a new humanity was achieved. With that inner architecture, it makes sense to see Pentecost as a week of weeks, forty-nine days plus one, again signaling that a new age has begun in Christ and the outpouring of his Spirit. The Jewish appreciation for Pentecost gave rise to the Jubilee year, the fiftieth year, when debts were released and prisoners set free. Today, the character of our Easter Sundays is conveyed by joyful Alleluias and the rite of sprinkling at Mass. Long ago, people expressed this joy by suspending all rules of fasting and by never kneeling at liturgy.
	These customs all point to our conviction that time is holy. There is an elegant balance to the Christian year: forty days of Lenten fast and discipline give way to fifty days of unrestrained rejoicing. That’s why it is still Easter!
—James Field