Yesterday our churches were filled to capacity and then some, a common phenomenon among all Christian groups. It was great. Easter for us, however, is not a day it is a season, 50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost.
We who go every week could sit around and bemoan the lose of the good old days. The ones that weren't quite so good as we like to think. We could sit around and complain about the younger generation and the "cafeteria Catholics." But how do that spread the gospel?
It seems to me that step one begins with us. The season of Easter lasts 50 days, but how long does our enthusiasm last? All too many of us are like the lilies, we're lucky if we last until next Sunday.
For the entire 50 days of Easter, we put away the Old Testament. In place of the Old Testament we read the Acts of the Apostles. Is it a somewhat idealized history of the early Church by St. Luke? Probably. But that is not a bad things. Ideals are good. Part of our problem is that we have become too cynical. We need to go back to the ideals. We need to go back that read the Acts of the Apostles and remember what it was that made the Christian faith so attractive to the people of the first century.
We spent 40 days of Lent doing penance, praying for conversion. We cannot simply go back to being our old self. Decide today what concrete actions you can take to make the 50 days of Easter different. How can you be a better example of Christian living?
