What’s your favorite holiday? For many, Christmas is their go-to celebration. Maybe a few, uh, unique people prefer Halloween. But for me, I’ve always loved Easter the best.
Actually, the Catholic Church holds Easter Sunday as the holiest feast of the entire liturgical year.
If that’s not a reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.
But maybe you don’t feel in a particularly celebratory mood this Easter. Maybe the thought of forty celebratory days makes you cringe.
There can be a lot of possible reasons (including unwanted singleness) that our life might still feel like one long Lenten desert, even when a feast like Easter comes around and calls us to celebrate.
So here are three things to ponder if you don’t really feel like celebrating, and some ideas on how to celebrate well!
Christ conquered the devil
Who is the chief of misery? The devil. He wants our lives to feel like they suck. He wants us to be lonely, sad, and hopeless.
But when Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, he conquered sin and death and all the misery that the devil wanted for us.
Do we still feel miserable at times, even after Christ conquered death and the devil? Yes.
But can the devil ultimately win? Absolutely not.
Jesus showed definitively that he was more powerful than the devil when he turned the ultimate act of evil into the greatest, most glorious miracle of all time.
So even if we feel down, miserable, or hopeless, we can look at Easter and know that God is more powerful than any suffering we might be facing and will make things perfect in the long run.
Christ wants to bring us joy and renewal
We tend to think of springtime as a time of new life. That’s probably largely because it’s the season when Easter occurs.
Christ’s Resurrection is when he came back to life, after the most brutal death in history. And Jesus promises to do the same for us, in more ways than one.
While the ultimate endgame of it all is our salvation in Heaven, Easter can be a great reminder that God wants to bring us joy and renewal in all aspects of our life here on earth as well.
So if we’re struggling with something in our life, remember that Jesus wants bring hope, joy, and renewal into that struggle.
This is true even in our love life. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into the trap of compartmentalizing your life. You may think of your love life, work life, social life, and faith life as if they were separate parts of your life. But that’s not the way it should be.
Christ wants to bring joy and renewal into all areas of our life. So if your love life is feeling less than perfect (or even rather hopeless!) Easter can be a great reminder that you should bring that to Christ and let him bring it back to life.
Christ opened Heaven for us
Everything else aside, the reason that the Catholic Church considers Easter to be the highest feast of the year is pretty simple: Easter makes salvation possible.
The sin of Adam and Eve had barred us from spending eternity in Heaven with God as he designed us for. So God sent Jesus to sacrifice himself and put things right.
Because Christ conquered sin and death in his Resurrection, we have the chance to spend eternity with him in Heaven.
No matter what our struggles might be here on earth, it is very comforting to know that we can reach our ultimate fulfillment and happiness in Heaven one day.
How should Catholic singles celebrate Easter?
Perhaps visions of small children hunting Easter eggs, or of feasting on a ham dinner with family, come to mind when you think of celebrating Easter.
Read more: 4 Tips to Help You Stay in the Easter Spirit When You Don’t Feel Like Celebrating
But if our present situation in life doesn’t make those types of family celebrations possible, there are still a lot of good ways to celebrate this holiest days of the year.
Have a date night with the Lord
If you’ve never gone to the Easter Vigil Mass, do yourself a favor and join in one of the richest, most vibrant liturgy celebrations ever.
Typically lasting at least 2-3 hours, the Easter Vigil Mass has eight readings (plus Psalms and the Gospel!), symbolic candlelight, celebrations of the sacraments of initiation for those coming into the Church, and so very many beautiful traditions to help bring you into a meditative, celebratory mood.
Treat yourself to an Easter breakfast
It might sound simplistic, but to me it’s always seemed that the type of delicious breakfast that takes too much effort to make all the time can be a great way to start off a celebratory day like Easter.
It doesn’t have to be fancy, but take time to spoil yourself with your favorites before or after an Easter morning Mass. Let your Easter breakfast help you remember that Jesus wants you to enjoy this special day.
Connect with friends and family
Just because we don’t have a spouse and kids of our own to celebrate with on Easter doesn’t mean we should spend it alone.
Try reaching out to relatives or friends for a get-together. Volunteer to help friends with kids run an Easter egg hunt. See if there’s a way you can spread the Easter joy to someone else in your life.
Whether everything in our life is perfect or not, Easter should be a day of great joy. So dive fully into the feast as much as you can, and let Jesus bring you some happiness.
