THE GREAT FIFTY DAYS

It used to seem as if we were encouraged to think of Easter at the most as an octave (eight days), ending with the Sunday after Easter being called Low Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer. These days in our new liturgical calendar it is called, more properly, 'The Second Sunday of Easter'.

Easter is not one day, or even eight but the whole 50 days from Easter to Pentecost. That is the reason why the Easter Candle is now left in the sanctuary until Pentecost, instead of being removed on Ascension day. Pentecost means fifty days and was celebrated as one great season of rejoicing. It was an extended Lord's Day on which there was no fasting and no kneeling.

The Great Fifty Days correspond to the Hebrew 'Feast of Weeks', which counted a week of weeks from Passover and celebrated the 50th day as "Shavuot" or Pentecost. This Jewish Pentecost began as a harvest celebration in origin, but came to be celebrated as a feast of the giving of the Law to Moses. Originally Christians considered all 50 days equal: each celebrated the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ and the Descent of the Holy Spirit. Gradually, different aspects of the Christian mystery, Resurrection, Ascension and Descent of the Holy Spirit, came to be associated with different phases of the Great Fifty Days. Successive Sundays and weekdays build up the picture of the risen life of Christ in the Church.

As I said in last month's magazine, "We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!" In our worship during Eastertide the one word that dominates is 'Alleluia', the Easter word. It features in psalms and hymns. In the liturgy the Easter acclamation: "Alleluia. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia." is used at the beginning of all the Easter Eucharists. The Easter dismissal at the end of Mass: "Go in the peace of Christ. Alleluia, alleluia" "Thanks be to God. Alleluia, alleluia."

During Eastertide the Acts of the Apostles is read instead of the Old Testament at all the Sunday and most of the weekday Eucharists. The Paschal or Easter Candle, symbol of the risen Christ, light of the world, burns in the sanctuary at all services. The Easter Garden with its empty tomb and figures of Christ, Mary Magdalene and the Holy Apostles is displayed in front of the altar throughout Eastertide.

"We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song". The central message of Eastertide is "He is not here; He has risen." For us the reverse is true. He has risen and He is here. In every Eucharist, but especially the Easter Eucharists. All that He did, all that He suffered, all that He achieved, was "for us and for our salvation." It was necessary, He tells the disciples on the road to Emmaus, that He should suffer these things and so enter into glory. We too like Him must die so that we can come to the new life of the Resurrection. "Alleluia. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia."

Your priest and friend.

MALCOLM FERRIER