The Easter season is an anticipation of the happiness Christ has won for us with his victory over death. Our Lord was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification, (Rom 4:25.) so that, by abiding in him, our joy might be complete. (see Mt 25:34.) 

The Paschal season stands at the summit of the liturgical year because the Christian message is the joyful announcement of the salvation brought about by our Lord’s “passover,” his passage from death to new life. “Easter is a time of joy—a joy not confined to this period of the liturgical year, but to be found really and fully in the Christian’s heart. For Christ is alive. He is not someone who has gone, someone who existed for a time and then passed on, leaving us a wonderful example. (St. Josemaria, Christ is Passing By, 102.) 

Although only the few who were chosen by God as witnesses (Acts 10:41.)  were present at the appearances of the Risen Christ, the liturgy now enables us to re-live these mysteries. As Pope St. Leo the Great preached, “All the things relating to our Redeemer which were previously seen, have now become sacramental rites.”(Saint Leo the Great, Sermon 74, 2. ) The Eastern Christians’ custom of exchanging the paschal greeting expresses their awareness of this reality. The greeting “Christos anestē, Christ is risen!” is answered with “Alethōs anestē, Truly, He is risen!”

The liturgy pours out its joy in the Exultet of the Easter Vigil. On Easter Sunday, in the beautiful Introit, it expresses this joy more succinctly: “I have risen and I am with you still. You have laid your hand upon me. Too wonderful for me, this knowledge.”(Introit, Easter Sunday).  We reverently put in our Lord’s mouth, in the form of a burning filial prayer to the Father, the inexpressible experience of his Resurrection at first light on that Sunday morning. Let us draw close to Christ, to grasp deeply the reality that he is alive today. Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, yes and forever (Heb 13:8)—because this is the basis of all Christian living.”(Christ is Passing By, 104)  Our Lord wants us to talk with him, and talk about him, not as a figure in the past, as someone we remember, but perceiving his “today,” his presence here and now, his living companionship.

“How happy the alleluia that we shall sing there!” exclaimed Saint Augustine in a homily. “It will be a firm, fearless alleluia, because no enemy shall be present, and no friend lost. There, as here, the divine praises shall resound, but the ones here come from those who are still in difficulties, while the praises resounding in heaven come from those who are secure; here from those who have to die, there from those who will live forever; here from those who hope, there from those who are in possession; here from those who are still on their way, there, from those who have arrived in the fatherland.”(Saint Augustine, Sermon 256, 3.)  

Saint Jerome wrote that during the first centuries in Palestine so habitual had become that cry that people ploughing the fields would sometimes sing out “Alleluia!” And oarsmen ferrying travellers across a river would cry out “Alleluia!” “A deep, serene joy comes over the Church during the weeks of Eastertide. It is the joy our Lord has wanted to leave as an inheritance to all Christians . . . a joy full of supernatural content that nobody and nothing can take from us if we do not let them.”(Blessed Alvaro del Portillo. )