Toward Easter - Daily Readings & Meditations for Easter 2025 - Easter Sunday

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Christ is risen! The glorious transformation we've been preparing for through forty days of Lenten sacrifice has arrived, but what happens to our spiritual journey now? 

This meditation explores the profound significance of Eastertide—not merely as the end of Lenten disciplines but as the beginning of a new way of living. From the triumphant moment when "light has triumphed over darkness," we are called to understand that Easter isn't about abandoning our spiritual progress, but redirecting it toward a fuller expression of our life in Christ.

As St. Paul reminds us, being "risen with Christ" means elevating our desires toward heaven while detaching from mere earthly satisfactions. For newly baptized Catholics, this season marks their first days in the faith, while for all believers, it offers a time to balance joyful celebration with continued spiritual growth. The Easter octave specifically highlights this transition as we learn to live out the new life received in baptism.

The meditation offers five practical Easter resolutions to help navigate this season properly: making a fervent communion, reciting the Haec Dies prayer at meals, sincerely greeting others with Easter joy, celebrating with family, and marking the end of Lenten austerities with small gestures of generosity. These simple practices help us maintain the proper perspective—celebrating fully while continuing to make spiritual progress.

Join us throughout the Easter octave as we explore what it means to live as new creations, clothed in the victory of Christ, who has conquered death once and for all. How will you carry your Lenten transformation into this season of uninterrupted joy?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Sancte, sancte, amare morti, decadas nos In teisper
avert.
Good morning everyone.

(00:32):
Happy Easter.
Happy Easter to all of you whohave been watching these
readings of meditations throughall of Lent and today Christ is
risen.
We will be continuing thesemeditations here through the
octave of Easter, from todaythrough next Sunday.

(00:55):
I believe they go all the waythrough.
Well, from today through EasterSaturday.
Anyways, I do not see one foruh, for low sunday, but uh, but
yeah.
So for the next week we will becontinuing these and we're

(01:18):
going to start off with a littlereading on easter tide itself,
and then we have a a reading andmeditation for Easter Sunday.
So, without further ado, I'llthrow up an image on screen and
we're going to get going today.
And for any of you who cameinto the church last night at

(01:38):
the Easter Vigil,congratulations.
We are very happy to have you,and today is your first full day
as a Catholic, so I'm not surewhy you're starting it off
listening to me, but hopefullyyou find this fruitful.
So give me a second here andwe're going to get going.

(02:03):
Eastertide, eastertide From theMass of the Easter Vigil until
Saturday in Pentecost week.
For seven weeks, the Churchcelebrates Jesus risen, easter,
going up to heaven Ascension andsending the Holy Ghost upon the
Apostles.
Pentecost, the Easter season isthe time of new life, the new

(02:29):
life of our Lord, now aliveforever, of a life that no
longer belongs to the earth, inwhich we will one day share in
heaven with Him and also our ownnew life.
Indeed, we have the certaintyof joining Jesus one day in
heaven if we are faithful to hisgrace.
Snatched by him from the powerof Satan, we belong to him as

(02:52):
his conquest and we participatein his life.
The Easter octave is the weekof the newly baptized.
They have passed from death tolife, from the darkness of sin
to the life of grace and thelight of Christ Gathered in his
church.
They share her faith, they prayand offer with her the

(03:15):
sacrifice of the redeemed inthanksgiving, and they find in
the sacred body of Jesus thenourishment of a fraternal life
which unites them in charity.
As for all other Christians,their Lenten efforts must not be
scattered to the winds in 24hours.
It is therefore necessary thatthey pursue them today, but now

(03:39):
in a new perspective.
It is no longer a question somuch of making the old man die
away as of living the new lifereceived in baptism.
The moral requirements of thenew life will be called to mind
throughout Eastertide.
They obey the principleexpressed by St Paul Risen with

(04:01):
Christ, the Christian ought toraise his desires toward heaven,
detach himself from earthlysatisfactions and acquire the
taste for things on high.
It will be the work of the HolyGhost to finish forming in
those who were baptized the newman who, by the holiness of his
life, bears witness to theresurrected Christ.
During these fifty days ofuninterrupted joy, the Alleluia

(04:28):
is continually resounding,attaching its triumphant
exaltation to all of the chants.
Until Pentecost, we use whitevestments, sign of joy and
baptismal purity.
And now Easter Sunday, glory andtriumph.

(04:51):
From today's introit, psalm 138, 18.
I arose and I'm still with thee.
Victory, that which we awaitedwith fervent desires for the
forty days of Lent, as we setaside our sin in order to clothe

(05:12):
ourselves in purity.
The goal that we have soughtsince the beginning of Advent
has finally been reached.
Light has triumphed overdarkness.
The divine sun shines above uswith all its warmth and with all
its brilliance.
At his birth, like lightpassing through crystal, he

(05:33):
preserved the virginal integrityof Mary's womb.
Today he passes in the same waythrough the rock of a sealed
cavern.
Everything remained intact.
He is free, the author of life,the source of our existence, he
who triumphs over death.
He is all-powerful because heis death.

(06:02):
He is all-powerful because heis.
No mortal being was present tosee with his eyes the
resurrection of our Lord.
The first event which happenedjust after is recounted by Saint
Matthew.
There was a great earthquake,for an angel of the Lord came
down from heaven and, drawingnear, rolled back the stone and
sat upon it.
His countenance was likelightning and his raiment like

(06:22):
snow.
The face of the angel remindsus that of our Lord himself on
the day of his transfiguration.
The fact of sitting down on thestone echoes the attitude of a
conqueror trampling upon hisvanquished enemies.
The angel is a figure of Christresurrected, and even of Christ

(06:44):
such as we will see him when hecomes back at the end of time.
He will then be the source of agreat confusion for sinners and
of great joy for the just.
Thus, the victory of Easteralready prefigures the
definitive victory of Christover his enemies.
Lord Jesus, I associate myselfwith all my heart to thy joy in

(07:09):
seeing thee take back up thybody, henceforth immortal.
Help me to receive communiontoday in the greatest
recollection in order to receivethe grace which thou desires to
communicate to me in abundance.
And now a prayer from theVespers Hem for Eastertide, in

(07:35):
the name of the Father and ofthe Son and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen At the royal banquet ofthe Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost.
Amen At the royal banquet ofthe Lamb.
Let us celebrate Christ, ourleader Vanquisher, overthrowing
the power of hell.
Christ displays his trophies,opens heaven, drags after his
chariot the subjugated king ofdarkness.

(07:56):
In the name of the Father andof the Son and of the Holy Ghost
, amen.
Our first thought of the day isfrom St Teresa of Avila.
How he shone with splendor, howbeautiful and majestic, how
victorious, how joyful he was.

(08:17):
What spoils he brought awayfrom the battle where he won a
glorious kingdom that he wishesto make all your own.
And our second thought of theday is from Saint Padre Pio.
Let us love Christ for hisdivine glory and his infinite
merits, because he isall-powerful in heaven and on

(08:40):
earth, but also, and above all,because of the gratitude we
should feel toward him.
And now, we have fiveresolutions today One, to make a

(09:07):
fervent communion.
Two, to recite at the blessingbefore and after meals, the
prayer Hach Dies.
Three, to make an effort tocommunicate with everyone,

(09:28):
particularly as Mass lets out,to wish them sincerely a happy
Easter.
4.
To make of Easter a greatfamily feast day and spend the
day in joy with those near anddear to us.
And five, to mark the end ofthe austerities of Lent by
offering a little surprise tofamily and friends.
And there is our reading andmeditation, and the prayer that

(09:58):
it says to recite at prayerbefore and after meals is this
is the day the Lord hath made.
Let us rejoice and be glad init.
Let me go back here.
Okay, so, as the, that littlereading for the, the Easter tide

(10:27):
, the Easter season, said umlens over, but we can't go back,
right, we can't go back to, tothe old man that we were, that

(10:49):
we were.
Um, we have to, you know, wehave to live a new life in
Christ.
So you know, whatever, whateverprogress you've made in the
spiritual life this Lent, youhave to, you have to continue
progressing, you have tocontinue moving it forward.
Um, you know, and this issomething I struggle with every,
every Easter season, you know,um, all the fasting I do during

(11:11):
Lent suddenly is replaced withuh, you know well, rightfully so
with feasting, but, but Ioverdo it.
Every Easter, um, every Easterseason, I should say so,

(11:34):
whatever progress you've made,whatever, whatever you know
things you've given up, whatever, um, extra prayers you've been
doing, you know, whateverspiritual reading you've been
doing, we have to keepprogressing.
We can't, you know, we can'tlet it all go now that it's

(11:55):
Easter.
So celebrate Easter feast, butwe have to continue progressing
in our spiritual lives.
We don't just give it up nowthat Lent is over.
Let's see here.

(12:16):
So, yeah, the resolutions fortoday.
You know Easter is a season ofjoy, so be joyful, like it says.
Communicate with everyone,especially as mass lets out.
Wish them a happy Easter.
Um, go spend the day withfamily.
Um, you know, feast today.

(12:37):
Uh, I'm making a prime rib.
Um, you know a lot of peoplewill make lamb or ham or
whatever.
Uh, but feast, celebrate, bejoyful.
You know Christ is risen,christ has defeated death.
So let's celebrate, withkeeping in mind the need to

(12:58):
continue progressing in ourspiritual life.
But I hope you all have ablessed Easter.
Thank you all for being with methroughout the 46 days of Lent.
It's really encouraging to haveas many people, as we did,
watch and listen to these andseem to really enjoy them and

(13:23):
find them fruitful, and thatmakes them more than worth it
for me to do.
So thank you all.
I do really appreciate it and,if you want, you're stuck with
me for another week here throughEaster Saturday and then, like
I said, maybe throughout theyear on special feast days we'll
do some, but then we'll getback into it again for Advent.

(13:46):
But then we'll get back into itagain for Lent, or not for Lent
, for Advent.
But that's for us to thinkabout after the Easter season.
So, happy Easter everyone.
Have a great day and I'll seeyou tomorrow, thank you.