2/23 The Easter or Paschal Cycle

One who closely follows the Liturgical Year of our Church will readily perceive, that she re-lives each festal event in a deeply spiritual manner.  This may be observed in our feastday services which, with their profound prayers, songs, hymns and symbolic rites, place before our eyes both the factual content and the deep theology of each feast.  Therefore, it should not surprise us that the feastday services impress us so strongly and stir us to the depths of our souls.  This is why the Church diligently prepares the faithful spiritually, psychologically and physically for every feast.  Therefore the greater the feast, the greater and longer is the preparation for it, and the longer is the post-festal celebration.

This is why the feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, which is the greatest feast in the Year, requires an extraordinarily long preparation as well as a long post-festal celebration which is, as it were, a prolongation of the feast of Easter.