Easter Novena
Christ is risen! He is truly risen! Alleluia! Follow Him from the Easter Vigil until Mercy Sunday !
This Novena:
Easter is the centre of the whole Christian year, the point around which all the Church's worship and belief turns.
To bring out the riches of this feast, it is extended into an “octave” – that is, the following week, which together with Easter Sunday itself makes eight days, a number that to the ancients signified completion or fulfilment.
Duringthese days, the Gospels at Mass present the various appearances of the risen Jesus after his Resurrection, and show the ways he transforms the lives of his disciples, who (unsurprisingly) were confused and distraught after his crucifixion and death. Jesus, risen from the dead, comes to them and renews them; he grants them a share in his new life, the life of Easter, life that has passed through death and destroyed it.
This life, eternal life, he offers to us, too, not merely in some abstract future state, but here and now, as we are, in all our defeats and confusions.
During this octave, we can place ourselves within these Gospels, and allow Jesus to come to us, as he came to his first disciples.
The last day of the Easter Octave, known as the Second Sunday of Easter, was named by St John Paul II as the Sunday of the Divine Mercy.
We are invited to make our own the doubts and fears of the disciples, and to offer them to God our Father, who is rich in mercy, and who, through Jesus, sends us the Spirit that allows us to know ourselves forgiven, and in our turn to have mercy on others.
Every day for 9 days:
-The Gospel reading 📕🔥
-State your intention for the day 🙏✝
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This novena comes from the Catholic Truth Society book 'A book of Novenas'.