The Season of Easter is arbitrarily divided into two
parts. There are forty days from Easter to the Solemnity of the
Ascension (mirroring Lent), and ten more days from Ascension to
Pentecost (which constitutes an unofficial Novena to the Holy Spirit,
a sort of mini-Advent awaiting the coming of the Paraclete).
The Sundays in this season are technically called the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Sunday "of Easter," although the Second Sunday of
Easter is now assigned the title "Divine Mercy Sunday" and the
Solemnity of the Ascension is transferred to the Seventh Sunday
of Easter in places where it is not celebrated as a holy day of
obligation.
These joyful fifty days may also be called "Eastertide," which
is synonymous with Easter Season. The Catholic Source Book
describes the suffix "tide" Through the ages people have thought of time as a vast, flowing sea, with its ebb and flow, its rising and falling.
Just as the tide has its ebb and flow, so an occasion has a build up,
and a denouement. So naturally, it became traditional for a feast - a
festive moment - to have a season: not just time, but a tide. So
Christmas time becomes Yuletide, and so on with Shrovetide,
Eastertide, Whitsuntide: time flowing through the seasons, even
as it does through the day: noontide, eventide, all with their glad
or sad tidings.
The readings take an unusual turn during Eastertide. There
are no readings whatsoever from the Old Testament. On
Sundays, selections are read from the Acts of the Apostles as the
First Reading. On weekdays of Eastertide, the Acts of the
Apostles is read in a continuous fashion from day to day, with the
whole book completed by the end of the season. Second
Readings on Sundays come from I Peter, I John, and the unusual
Book of Revelation, during Years A, B, and C, respectively. The
Gospel readings are almost exclusively from Saint John. As the
light of the resurrected Christ shines through the universe making
all things new, the psalms (the Judeo-Christian "hymnal") remain
our only reminder of the pre-Messianic times.
Easter