Catholics worldwide celebrated the start of the Easter season Sunday, April 9, with leaders of various dioceses proclaiming the blessings of the Resurrection and the 50-day lead-up to Pentecost, which will fall on May 28.

“Christ is risen!” the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee said on Facebook. “Easter Sunday is the greatest feast of the ecclesiastical year. Today, we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection from the dead and His triumph of good over evil, sin and death.” It then posted a video link so people could watch Bishop William A. Wack convey his Easter message.

Sometimes called Eastertide, the Easter season starts with an eight-day Easter Octave that runs through Divine Mercy Sunday, the National Catholic Register said.

“Let us proclaim ‘He is Risen’ throughout this Octave & for the entire Easter Season of 50 days until Pentecost,” Tyler Bishop Joseph Strickland said on Twitter. “Easter is not just a day but Jesus’s Resurrection ushers in a New Day for all humanity for all time. Let us strive to live in the Light of His Resurrection always!” 

Eastertide, seen as a time of rebirth, is the longest season in the liturgical calendar because of the enduring nature of what it represents. The season lasts 50 days because after Jesus was resurrected, he spent 40 days on earth before ascending to heaven. Another 10 days passed before Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as they met with Mary, the mother of God.

The Lenten season, in comparison, lasts for 40 days. Jesus explained the rationale for the disparity of days for the two seasons. He said Lent, with all of its fasting days, lasts 40 days because the need for fasting would eventually fade away. The Great Feast of the Lamb that is the Easter season represents eternity and would persist, Jesus continued, the Anglican Compass said in a report. 

"As Jesus was raised from the dead, we walk with confidence, in what St. Paul called ‘newness of life,’ following in Jesus’ footsteps, our lives now an adventure destined for heaven and the love that never ends," José Gomez, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, wrote in an article that appeared in the Angelus newsletter. "These next 50 days, from Resurrection Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, are meant to be lived as one long feast, a ‘great Sunday,’ as the Church Father St. Athanasius put it.”