Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday is the solemnity of the Resurrection of the Lord. Every Sunday of the year is a little Easter, but this day is the source of the others. The Church calls it the feast of feasts. The liturgical day begins at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night, when the new fire, the Exsultet, the baptisms, and the first Alleluia of the season are celebrated.

The date is movable. In the Roman reckoning used by Western Christians, Easter is the Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21, the ecclesiastical start of spring. It can fall between March 22 and April 25. Eastern Churches often celebrate on a later Sunday because they use a different calendar and a different calculation of the full moon. Catholic Bible Online does not publish a fake fixed URL such as a single March or April day for Easter, because that day changes every year.

The Mass of Easter Day is filled with light and water. White vestments replace violet. The sequence Victimae paschali laudes is sung. The Gospel is the finding of the empty tomb. The fifty days that follow, through Pentecost, are one feast, not a return to ordinary time.

Easter Sunday is a holy day of obligation. Catholics are bound to attend Mass unless they are excused by a serious reason. The Friday abstinence of the year is lifted through the Easter season in the general law of the Latin Church.