When it was her turn, she walked right up to the cross, carefully leaned down very low, and gave the dark wood a kiss. Then she bounced away.

The Easter season is a time for rejoicing—not just for ourselves, but in a way that invites those around us to join in the celebration.

Because of the evidence of the empty tomb and the encounters of the risen Jesus with the women, the apostles and disciples, and St. Paul, the Church has always believed and preached the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is the moment that definitively changed human history forever.

His great goal was the conversion of Protestant America to Catholicism, something he was convinced could happen. After all, he said, in the United States “true religion will find a reception it has in vain looked for elsewhere.”

Easter is plainly the solemn feast celebrating the resurrection of Christ. It is fine to say Happy Easter. The origin of the word “Easter” is complex.

A most joyful day in my ministry as your bishop is the First Sunday of Lent when we celebrate the Rite of Election. It is a beautiful moment when the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen is filled to overflowing with those of you entering the Church, together with your godparents, sponsors, parish priests, catechists and friends.  

In a world filled with inauthentic social media posts, why not inundate those platforms with authentic Easter joy? If you fasted from social media for Lent, return with a purpose.

This sudden spring awareness of feet coincides with our liturgical tradition: the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday. This powerful liturgical moment imitates the example rooted in John 13, when, at the Last Supper Jesus washes his disciples’ feet.

In the early Church, the feast day of the Resurrection of the Lord was simply called Passover, or some translation of that word, as it still is to this day in most languages of the world. This is where we get the word “paschal” in the Paschal Mystery. That just means, “the Passover Mystery.”

The Way of the Cross — and the third, seventh, and ninth stations in particular — has been an especially appropriate Lenten devotion this year. Every day, it seems, some new craziness erupts in the world, the country, or the Church. Every time we think we see rays of hope and possibility, we take another fall.