The Octave of Easter

The Catholic liturgy enjoys an octave to celebrate Easter — eight days of festivity centering on the resurrection and what it means for the Christian life. The unitary quality of this time is suggested by the texts of the liturgy itself: all the way through the Second Sunday of Easter they continue to speak of “today” as the day of the Resurrection. So, although this Monday is no longer “Easter day” in chronological time, in “liturgical time” we remain in the great “day” of Easter for all eight days of the octave.

When I did parish work, I found that the liturgy and music staff were so played out by the end of the Triduum that there wasn’t really any energy left for the octave, and it passed quietly. It was a reality observed perhaps by daily Mass goers or those who pray the Hours, but it was not a time marked by the faithful in other ways. It wasn’t inculturated, so to speak. Each year, I say to myself, I am going to try to do something for the octave, and yet I can’t say that I’ve met with a lot of success.

Have others found ways to keep the octave of Easter, to sustain the joy of the Pascha? I would be interested in hearing what people do for these eight days.

Rita Ferrone

Rita Ferrone is an award-winning writer and frequent speaker on issues of liturgy and church renewal in the Roman Catholic tradition. She is currently a contributing writer and columnist for Commonweal magazine and an independent scholar. The author of several books about liturgy, she is most widely known for her commentary on Sacrosanctum Concilium (Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium, Paulist Press). Her most recent book, Pastoral Guide to Pope Francis's Desiderio Desideravi, was published by Liturgical Press.

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18 responses to “The Octave of Easter”

  1. Ryan Ellis

    I tend to make a point of having a very meaty Friday lunch with co-workers and family to emphasize that every day this week is a solemnity, and it’s one of the few Fridays in which eating meat is permitted without reservation.

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    1. Karl Liam Saur

      @Ryan Ellis – comment #1:
      Ditto the Sacred Heart.

      My father remembers doing the Sacred Heart novena of First Fridays in the 1930s in his parochial school (a German national parish in Bridgeport, CT), and after Mass, the nuns permitted the children a treat of getting a jelly doughnut at the bakery around the corner. When my father told me this, I mentioned they may have intended a sweet symbol of the Sacred Heart, and he laughed. After all, the permission was specifically for that treat. (The nuns would likely have known them as Fasnetskiachla, not Berliner Pfannkuchen, but they weren’t teaching the students German after World War I, so my father never learned it the way his older siblings did. )

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  2. Lee Bacchi

    I think the bigger issue is how do we keep up the festivity and joy for 50 days??

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  3. Karl Liam Saur

    In the USA, there being no general custom of Easter Monday or Easter Tuesdays being civil holidays, the Catholic customs of Easter week didn’t take root here. And, truth be told, those customs peaked in the MIddle Ages and were put under much pressure with the advent of nation states in the Modern Era (16th century and thereafter), worsening with industrialization. Modernity was not going to suffer a two-week worker holiday – heck, that was already being trimmed back in the 15th century, right?

    But I also think part of the failure here is residual in another way: for so long, Lent was treated as the summit of the Catholic year, so much so that it developed its own period of preparation, so that Easter became a great release of air of the balloon.

    How many parishes put all their decor and effort into Easter Sunday, and let it fade over Eastertide (instead of planning to build up to Pentecost) – just like Christmastide? Music? Homilies? Other ministries?

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  4. Christopher Ferraro

    Our parish has music at our 12:15pm weekday Mass during the Octave of Easter. There are two of us that play the orgn so we rotate the days.

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  5. Andrew Casad

    A couple of ideas for mystagogy with the newly baptized worked well: https://newchelsea.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/octave-of-light/
    We had choir members take turns at the Octave of Easter celebrations of Evening Prayer. This year our newly baptized and her family are being hosted for dinner in a different family’s home each day of the Octave.

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  6. Margaret Boey

    I feel that the Octave of Easter has not been emphasized.
    Yes we spend all our energy during Holy Week, being the holiest days of the liturgical year but play down the celebration of the Octave.
    I am going to have a meaty Friday this Friday.

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  7. Pádraig McCarthy

    If, as in our parish, the congregation at Mass normally kneels for the Eucharistic Prayer, I would invite those who wish to do so to stand in prayer instead. If church architecture and layout allows, invite them to come and stand around the altar table.
    In Ireland there was a custom (now faded) of bringing home Easter Water, the Baptism water blessed at Easter.

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  8. Barry Hudock

    The Vatican Radio website noted yesterday that “Pope Francis recited the Regina Coeli on Easter Monday, leading the pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square in a rousing chant of ‘Christ is risen!'” It also reported: “The Pope made mention of the ‘curious’ truth that the Liturgy treats the entire Octave – eight days – of Easter as one day, to ‘help us enter into the mystery’ of the feast.”

    http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/04/06/pope_francis_be_transformed_by_the_resurrection/1134888

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  9. Paul Inwood

    the liturgy and music staff were so played out by the end of the Triduum that there wasn’t really any energy left for the octave, and it passed quietly.

    This, exactly this. A primary need is to sleep ! and generally recharge the batteries. It’s certainly possible to have a period of quiet joyfulness, I think — Easter food and drink, plenty of rest, some good walks, reflection, catching up on reading (I have just devoured the latest issues of Worship and Pastoral Music) and videos (of Triduum celebrations or whatever). I’d call this time “mystagogia piana”, and it’s easier to do this when, as here, the schools are having a week off and many people have gone away on a break.

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  10. Jim Pauwels

    Rita – until I started praying the Liturgy of the Hours, I think I was unaware that there was even such a thing as an octave of Easter. I think awareness is very low among our people. Maybe our hymn writers need to write sacred texts that celebrate the “Eight Days of Easter”, and that would raise awareness.

    Doesn’t Divine Mercy Sunday now fall on the 8th day of the octave? I don’t know if that is supposed to aid our awareness that the octave ends on that day, but I suspect that more likely it thwarts it (our awareness, that is) :-(.

    Regarding how to bring that awareness, and celebration, into our home: I am guessing we’re not the only ones in this situation: between the hard-boiled Easter eggs, and the Easter basket-related sweets, and the leftovers from Easter dinner, we could easily eat at least some Easter food for eight straight days. But we’ve never made a point of it. Thinking about it, I like the idea of telling the children, “You can eat Easter candy for eight days; after that, it goes away.”

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  11. Gregory Hamilton

    Well, I would say that our seminary is fully engaged in the octave. We do treat it as one day with all the solemnity….and D Mercy is the capstone with seqence etc.

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  12. Fr Richard Duncan CO

    I don’t think that Divine Mercy Sunday necessarily interferes with our awareness of the Octave Day of Easter. In fact, it ties in rather well with the Gospel of the Day, i.e. the institution of the Sacrament of Penance (Jn 20:19-31 this year). We normally have four or five confessors fully occupied all afternoon, with queues stretching out of the door. It forms an exhausting but wonderful climax to the Octave.

    If only the liturgical pruners had left the Octave of Pentecost intact …

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    1. Pádraig McCarthy

      @Fr Richard Duncan CO – comment #13:
      The tradition I grew up with saw this gospel (John 20:19-31) as the institution of the Sacrament of Penance/Reconciliation. It can certainly include this, but it is much wider. The commission is to the disciples (not the apostles) to forgive. yes, Jesus recognises they must make a choice to forgive or retain, but there’s no doubt which he wants them and us to do – even 77 times. The example of Jesus himself in this reading is clear: his disciples had abandoned him a few days before, in his hour of greatest need, and yet his first word is “Peace.” He didn’t even insist that they confess and make an act of contrition!
      Forgiveness is much broader than the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and is the mission of every follower of Jesus. This is how we live our risen life: sin and death have no power over us any more.
      I used to feel it was a mistake to remove the Octave of Pentecost, until I realised that, on the contrary, they had enlarged it – up to 34 weeks of Pentecost (although really an eternity).
      One way to bring out the Easter week and Easter season is how we present the décor of our places of worship. How about flowers decorating and giving prominence to the crucifix for the 50 days? Encourage people to do the same at home: to have a prayer space decorated suitably for Easter season.
      Fr Raymond E Brown pointed out that this gospel reading is the only indication we have that nails were used in the crucifixion of Jesus. They are not mentioned in the accounts of the crucifixion.

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      1. Fr Richard Duncan CO

        @Pádraig McCarthy – comment #14:
        Of course you’re right that John 20:19-31 goes wider than the Sacrament of Penance. In fact, you’ve given me a couple of ideas for my homily at the weekend. Thank you!

        I think it was a great mistake to do away with the “after Pentecost” nomenclature for the “green” Sundays in favour of “Ordinary Time”. The same goes for the Sundays “after Epiphany”. I think that the restoration of these two Octaves in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, and the change in the way we describe “Ordinary Time” would be a enrichment of the liturgy. (I am, of course, aware that the Octave of the Epiphany disappeared before the Council, but I don’t think that affects the point I’m making).

  13. Bruce Morrill

    Yes, Lee Bacchi, I am passionate about practices to keep the Easter Seadon vital for its fifty days. Sacraments of initiation celebrated on the Sundays help: first communions, infant baptisms, and reception of already baptized candidates into full communion into the Roman Church on Pentecost Sunday. I also advocate anointing the sick (including the elderly whose health has seriously diminished) during a Sunday Mass in the Easter Season. Lent would be the time of preparation for this (including rite of penance, if needed). The prayer of anointing is that the Lord save them and raise them up. As we know, in the gospels such language has resurrection tones. And speaking of tones, how I wish parishes would sing Easter hymns throughout the seven Sundays. There are so many in the hymnals yet just a couple sung for the first or second Sunday. What a loss. It’s a week of weeks, as Basil taught, and references to the “today” of the resurrection should not, as seems largely to be the case, be taken to refer just to one Sunday a year. Yes, the resurrection also bears the question of what God is waiting for in delaying the resurrection of all. But such is the heart of our faith. One last note: As a homelist I always preach on the second reading throughout the season. Whether 1 John, 1 Peter, or Revelation, the texts are a singular annual occasion for sustained treatment over several weeks of various dimensions of the church as the body of the Paschal Victim. I always revel in the opportunity.

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  14. Alan Hommerding

    I drove past several RC church signs in March that advertised some Easter activity or other happening on Palm Sunday (a visit from the Easter bunny, egg hunt, and so on). In a previous parish, there was a “traditional Palm Sunday breakfast with the Easter bunny” in place – not sure what stretch of years determined “traditional” in this case.
    The surrounding culture is much better at “pre-joicing” than rejoicing for an octave or a season. Witness Christmas’ beginning on October 20th. And when else do we expect folks to celebrate/observe an octave?
    If this is going to be successful, I think three things need to happen: 1) the main burden of post-festal observances need to be placed on the domestic church, not the sanctuary – support them from the sanctuary; 2) “pre-joicing” activities at church need to stop (not attempting to take on parish schools here); 3) celebrate OTHER octaves, and novenas, and so on – – don’t observe this one weird thing once a year and be surprised that nobody hippity-hoppities on the bandwagon with you.

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  15. David Hall

    As the music director I can make a big difference in our parish’s weekday masses this week by attending to lead singing of the liturgy, including sung Gloria, responsorial psalm, the sequence every day and Alleluia, as well as accompanying on the organ the entrance and exit hymns they normally do a capella. I also throw in solo renditions of the Graduale Romanum Offertory and Communion. A gentle soul asked me to let them sing a hymn instead of doing the Entrance chant so I compromised on that item but generally they like to have me show up and lead music like this. A couple of days I can ask a choir member to come and cantor while I accompany the Responsorial psalm. Easter Monday is a holiday in Ontario so we had good attendance over 100. With only a single priest we don’t normally have masses on Monday or Saturday morning but this week he added them to his schedule. That meant we did the Monday mass at 11am which preserved the holiday feel. (Other days it’s at 9 am).
    The masses for our three parish elementary schools are also scheduled in this week rather than later in the season, also with music led by the school choirs aided by the church music staff. Getting the school masses into this week allows them to enjoy the resurrection gospels and Easter Sunday songs. There is a priest appointed to help us out in these busy times. I am not in favour of trying to do this all again at Pentecost. In older days in northern climates they had to delay their initiation celebrations to the end of the season when it would be a little warmer and they turned Pentecost into White Sunday but I like ending our 50 days of celebration cleanly. The Easter Octave is the first week of seven and the Easter season is the first seventh (approx) of the year. It is a memory of the Week of unleavened bread that is part of the passover celebration and carries the theme of celebrating the original creation of the world as well as the new creation brought about by God in Christ. Christos anesti. Party on.

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