For many people, Easter seems to be over almost as soon as Easter Sunday ends. The chocolate disappears, schools go back, and ordinary routines quickly resume. In the Catholic Church, however, Easter is not confined to a single day. It is a season, and a long one: 50 days in all, beginning on Easter Sunday and ending with Pentecost. In 2026, that means Easter began on 5 April and continues until Pentecost Sunday on 24 May.
That may come as a surprise even to some practising Catholics. Yet the Church’s liturgical calendar treats the resurrection not as a brief moment to be commemorated and then set aside, but as a mystery so central that it unfolds over weeks. Easter lasts from the Sunday of the Resurrection until the feast of Pentecost, which commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, Mary and the first followers of Christ.
