Each Sunday Mass provides an Easter celebration every week all year long

Intermountain Catholic

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Pope John Paul II is pictured in a 1993 photo during World Youth Day in Denver; his 1998 Apostolic Letter ?Dies Domini? calls Catholics to commemorate Jesus' resurrection every Sunday even in today's world with its weekend distractions, ?to recover the deep doctrinal foundations? of the Church. CNS photo/Joe Rimkus Jr.

 By Maxine Kaiser 

Having just concluded the Easter Season, which reached its fulfillment in the celebration of the Solemnity of Pentecost, it is important for us to keep in mind what the Most Rev. John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City, stated so eloquently in his beautiful and inspiring Easter message a few weeks ago: "Easter is celebrated every single Sunday of the year when God’s holy people gather around the altar for Eucharist. There is no way to put a period on the celebration that we now begin." (Intermountain Catholic, April 22, 2011).

When reading this statement from our bishop, I was reminded of the late Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Dies Domini (Day of the Lord), which was released to the world on Pentecost Sunday 1998, in preparation for the coming of the Third Millennium.

Early in the letter the pope states his desire to reflect with the faithful on the meaning of Sunday and underline the reasons for living Sunday as truly the Lord’s Day, also in the changing circumstances of our own times.

In this ever-timely document, highly acclaimed for its very personal and poetic style and its rich theological content, he presents the spiritual and pastoral riches of the Sunday as it has been handed on to us by tradition.

Sunday is the high point of the Christian week and the Sunday Eucharist is its heart and center. Pope John Paul II’s message serves as a challenge to all believers "to reflect upon the course of history in the light of Christ," and as an invitation "to rediscover with new intensity the meaning of the Sunday: its mystery, its celebration, and its significance for Christian and human life."

Sunday is the Church’s original feast day. In the early days of the Christianity, there were no other feasts, only Sunday, which has from Apostolic times been called the Lord’s Day.

Also known as the First Day of the Week, Sunday celebrates the core of our Christian mystery, Christ’s victory over sin and death, the fulfillment in him of the first creation and the dawn of "the new creation." It is, in a special way, a day of joy and of hope and of celebrating the new creation.

Sunday is also sometimes called the "Eighth Day," meaning "a day beyond time" that points to the Parousia, the return of Christ in glory at the end of time.

Sunday is above all a celebration of the living presence of the Risen Lord in our midst here and now, a celebration of our salvation and that of all of humanity. Certainly our celebration of the Sunday Mass is highlighted by our participation in the Sunday Eucharist, giving praise and thanks to God for the many blessings that have been given us. But it is also a day of rest and rejuvenation, a day for getting reconnected with ourselves, with our families and community, and also with the natural world around us.

"This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad." Ps. 118.

Maxine Kaiser is the former director of liturgy for the Diocese of Salt Lake City.