"My Easter started with Lent. On Catholic radio, I heard a lot of explaining of the meaning of Lent, a lot of examples of Lenten practices, and a lot of exhortation to use Lent as a time to build a better relationship with Jesus. From "Catholic Answers Live" to "Living Catholic" to "Women of Grace", and many more programs, I received challenges and opportunities for Lent. In particular, as I prepared to make tuna casserole for the Lenten meal following Stations of the Cross at St. Charles, I enjoyed Father Don Wolf's nod to this practice as part of the traditional devotion in "Living Catholic."
On Easter Sunday, I had a grateful and joyous heart, but I pondered what resurrection meant to me if I really believed that Jesus personally paid for my sins with His passion and death. Was it freedom from sin? Transformation? If Christ ransomed me, this new life deserved more than a day's worth of consideration. Truthfully, many times my Easter celebration was Easter Sunday, not Easter Season. If I was taking my faith as seriously as the new Catholics I have heard on "The Journey Home", who leave comfortable, sometimes prominent lives in other faith traditions for Catholicism, then I had to live this Resurrection beyond one day.
I began to try to consciously live the Easter season in a small way. Several years ago, through Catholic radio, I learned about the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I prayed the chaplet throughout the Easter season, this year by expressing my thanks to God on each rosary bead for some specific person, circumstance, etc. in my life. I alternated by the decade, my prayers of gratitude with prayers of petition for people that needed my prayers. That has been great. There is nothing like gratitude to make you feel joy. My prayer petitions produced a bonus: I have purpose in praying for others.
There is more than I can share here, but I have participated in the Easter Season. I think it is listening to Catholic radio that has prodded me to want more. Now I am all ears to re-visit Pentecost. What about you?"