Easter is the best season of them all—the royal feast of feasts. In this season, we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, in which death is defeated, sin is conquered, and evil is vanquished. We get 50 whole days to celebrate the glory of Easter. And we need it. It’s not easy to grasp the mystery and majesty of what happened when Jesus walked out of the tomb on Easter morning.

On Good Friday, the powers of the world did their best to extinguish God’s perfect love. It looked like evil had won. But early on the morning of Easter, women found an empty tomb. They went and told others who were disciples of Jesus. The disciples saw that Jesus’s promises had come true.

Before long, those followers of Jesus told others. And they told others. Soon thousands and thousands, and millions and millions, of people wanted to know the power of God’s transforming love in Jesus Christ. The Easter season invites us to remember that Easter changes everything, not only for Jesus but for us and for the whole universe.

In this bright, joyous season, we focus on Easter and its aftermath. We say more alleluias. We sing louder. We use lots of golden vestments, and we light the Paschal Candle, towering over all the other candles, to symbolize Christ’s light in the world.

Easter gives us 50 days to celebrate, 50 days to begin new habits so we can live an Easter life.

Forward Movement offer this blog as one way to celebrate Easter, with posts each day calling us to reflect upon the joy of the resurrection. Sign up for email notifications of each new post—to read, reflect, and celebrate Easter. Alleluia! Alleluia!

About the 2023 author

Louise Peters is a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, who presently lives in the Interior of British Columbia. Ordained for 38 years, she has served in a variety of ministries, from parishes to university chaplaincy, cathedrals to conference centers. Most recently, she served as the vicar of St. James Cathedral in Toronto and, prior to that, served as the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Kamloops, British Columbia. Presently, Louise is the founding director of Sapience Spiritual Direction, an online practice that offers prayer and soul friend support to those who seek to deepen their relationship with the Holy One. She finds her own soul renewed through contemplative prayer, river walks with her lab Jack, and conversations shared around scripture circles.

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Past Contributors

Lindsay Barrett-Adler

Lindsay Barrett-Adler serves as development director at Forward Movement and delights in sharing the story of its mission and impact, made possible by generous donors. In her free time, Lindsay is an often-disappointed Philadelphia sports fan, curious chef, and mom of three, always in need of more coffee.

Ann Benton Fraser

Ann Benton Fraser serves as associate rector at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio, where she lives with her spouse and three children. Either indecisive or decidedly adaptable, she likes Game of Thrones and Call the Midwife, using scissors and glue, making messes and cleaning up messes, quiet and chaos, things Protestant and Catholic.

Margaret Ellsworth

Margaret Ellsworth serves as Marketing Coordinator for Forward Movement. She holds a Master’s degree in worship and the arts from Claremont School of Theology. Margaret lives with her husband and two young children in Boise, Idaho.

Kristen Fout

Kristen Fout is a worshiper of Jesus. She seeks to follow him in all things, but especially in her roles as wife, mother, and pharmacist. She is a member of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Bexley, Ohio.

Timothy Gavin

Timothy Gavin is the head chaplain at The Episcopal Academy and an associate pastor at St. Alban’s Church in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.

Scott Gunn

Scott Gunn is executive director of Forward Movement and a priest in the Episcopal Church. He is the author of three other books, including Walk in Love: Episcopal Beliefs & Practices.

Sara H. Irwin

Sara Irwin was ordained in the Episcopal Church in 2004 and serves as pastor of St John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Carnegie, 5 miles south of Pittsburgh, PA. She and her husband (also a priest) parent one middle schooler and one high schooler. For fun, you’ll find her hiking, camping, running, and doing anything that gets her outside. Other pleasures include tattoos, yoga, contemplative prayer, brewing beer, and Scandinavian crime fiction.

Maria A. Kane

Maria Kane is a priest and historian with a love for writing, hiking, kayaking, and reading.

For the past seven years, she has served as rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Waldorf, Maryland. She is proud graduate of Howard and Duke Universities and the College of William & Mary.

Ryan Kuratko

Ryan Kuratko, PhD., is the campus and young adult missioner for Harlem, Uptown, and the Bronx for the Diocese of New York. He likes to ask really basic questions about prayer and spirituality, and he maintains good boundaries with his time mostly so that he can hang out with his kids, cook, and play video games.

Pamela A. Lewis

Pamela A. Lewis taught French for thirty years before retirement a few years ago. She now devotes her time to writing on topics of faith and on faith and the arts for The Episcopal New Yorker, Episcopal Journal, and The Living Church. A lifelong resident of Queens, N.Y., she attends Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, where she serves on various lay ministries.

Kit Lonergan

Kit Lonergan serves as Priest for Welcome and Care at Trinity Church in the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Parent of two, and master of none, she learns most about love, faith and mercy in supermarket parking lots.

Nia McKenney

Nia McKenney is a vocalist and musician in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her favorite things are music technology, her sisters, and her plants.

Cara Meredith

Cara Meredith is a freelance writer and the author of The Color of Life.

She is in the ordination process with the Episcopal Church and lives with her family in Oakland, California.

Hugo Olaiz

Hugo Olaiz is associate editor for Latino/Hispanic resources at Forward Movement. Hugo grew up in La Plata, Argentina, and moved to the U.S. to do graduate studies in Spanish, linguistics, and translation. Hugo now lives in Oxford, Ohio, with his husband John-Charles Duffy and an aging beagle mix named Patches. In his spare time, he loves to entertain friends, edit Wikipedia entries, and watch opera clips on YouTube.

Robert Two Bulls

Robert Two Bulls, an Oglala Lakota, Episcopal priest, artist, husband, and father, lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Mary Lee Wile

Mary Lee is a deacon in the Diocese of Maine. A former public school teacher, she’s been a pediatric hospice chaplain, a prison chaplain, a contributor to Forward Day by Day and Grow Christians, facilitates Sacred Ground, and spends lots of time with grandchildren.