Easter Is A Season, Pope Francis, and Living Hope!
How the next 50 days might change you.
When the world heard the news that Pope Francis had died, it felt as though a gentle but commanding voice had gone silent—a shepherd whose influence radiated far beyond the Catholic Church. Regardless of our faith traditions, the Pope (whoever it is) shapes moral conversations, global policies, and even how hope is imagined around the world. Whoever carries the papal mantle touches billions of lives, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. It’s in that spirit that I want to explore what the Popes have said about Easter—a season that is about so much more than just one brilliant Sunday morning.
For most people, Easter conjures images of lilies, sunrise services, and shouts of “Alleluia!” But Easter isn’t just one day, and it was never intended to be. It’s a whole season—fifty days in fact—dedicated to the reality of resurrection. Pope Francis himself beautifully insisted, “We are called to be people of the Resurrection and not of the tomb.” That call doesn’t end when the eggs are found and the choir’s final note fades.
Easter, in the wisdom of the Church, is a prolonged celebration, a season for living into the promise that despair does not get the last word. Pope Benedict XVI put it this way: “Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the ‘Feast of feasts,’ the ‘Solemnity of solemnities,’ just as the Eucharist is the Sacrament of sacraments.” That means the resurrection isn’t a one-day pep talk for the weary, but the axis around which the whole Christian life turns.
Why does this matter? Because life is lived in seasons. Our pain, our hope, our spiritual growth—they don’t resolve in a single sunrise. Pope John Paul II once said, “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.” That song must be sung in the valleys of grief and the mountaintops of new beginnings. The fifty days of Easter—stretching from Easter Sunday to Pentecost—invite us to roll the stone away from our hearts again and again, letting resurrection shape every ordinary moment.
The wisdom of the Popes reveals that Easter is a rhythm, a way of seeing. Pope Francis encouraged, “Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope!” The season of Easter insists that hope is stubborn—rising each day with us, calling us to practice forgiveness, reconciliation, and courageous love. Living Easterly, if you will, means showing up to the world’s wounds with resurrection faith, believing new life is possible wherever we are.
Looking through the lens of these papal voices, Easter is an invitation to continual transformation—a sacred reminder that darkness is real, but dawn is relentless. The world changes a little each time we let the resurrection story unfold not just in church, but in coffee shops, board meetings, kitchen tables, and hospital rooms.
Whoever the next Pope may be, the wisdom of these words persists: Easter is not a day, but a season, and resurrection is more than a doctrine. It is a way to live and to see, for Christians and for all who crave hope.