It’s Easter Sunday, not April Fool’s Day

It is irreverent irony that this year’s Easter Sunday falls on April Fool’s Day. The two events are poles apart: Easter being a solemn, happy occasion to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, while April Fool’s is the day of the pranksters playing practical jokes on each other. But let the non-Catholics focus on Aprils Fool’s while the communities of faithful believers in the Holy Roman Catholic, numbering at least 1.3 billion out of 7.6 billion population worldwide.

Of the 1.3 billion Catholics, 483 million are in Latin America, of which 123 million are in Brazil alone. In Europe, there are 277 million Catholics, 177 million in Africa, 137 million in Asia (92 million are in the Philippines), 85 million in North America, of which 33 million are in the USA. All Catholics celebrate Easter, the foundation of their faith. Had Jesus not been resurrected on Easter Sunday, then the foundation of Catholicism would collapse. The Lord’s rising from the dead and appearing before the apostles is the essence of Catholicism, thus Easter Sunday commands a high degree of importance among the Catholic feasts and holidays of obligation.

April Fool’s Day could be traced in history to 1582 when France switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar pursuant to the Council of Trent in 1563. Some people were too slow to adjust to the new time perspectives, forgetting that that New Year should already start on January first. Most of them continued to celebrate New Year in the last week of March up to the first of April. This was also linked to an ancient Roman festival "Hilaria" when people dressed in disguise to hide their identity to fool others. All events were held during the vernal equinox, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, when Mother Nature was said to have fooled people with unpredictable and changing weather.

Today is zero percent April Fool’s and 100 percent Easter Sunday. This is the apex of the Christian faith, the realization of what 1.3 billion people have believed in as the essence of being followers of the Master, the Lord and the Redeemer. Without the resurrection, the crucifixion would have been in vain. Good Friday would have lost its purpose and meaning without Easter Sunday. Had the Master not risen from the dead, the apostles would have nothing to proclaim to the whole world. Nobody would have accepted the scriptural truth that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

This is not the day of fools, but a day of truth we are celebrating with joy in our hearts; More intensely than New Year, more meaningfully than Christmas.