The Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year state that the first eight days of Easter Time constitute the Octave of Easter and are celebrated as solemnities of the Lord. The Church treats these eight days as a single day too great to be contained by one: what is celebrated on Easter Sunday is celebrated again each morning until the Second Sunday of Easter, which closes the octave. Each day has the Gloria, the proper Easter preface with its "on this day above all" phrasing, and the readings that follow the first witnesses to the Resurrection — the women at the tomb, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the appearance in the upper room, the meal by the Sea of Tiberias. The first readings are taken from the Acts of the Apostles, the preaching of the Church that flows immediately from the empty tomb. The sequence Victimae paschali laudes is prescribed on Easter Sunday itself and may be sung on the other days of the octave, and the double Alleluia is added to the dismissal throughout the octave. No solemnity, feast, or memorial may be celebrated during these days; a funeral Mass may not use the usual funeral texts. In the ancient Church the newly baptized wore their white garments through the whole week — the octave was called the week in albis — and came each day for instruction in the mysteries they had received. That is the origin of the mystagogical catechesis given to the neophytes in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, which the Church still asks to be continued through the Easter Season. The Second Sunday of Easter, the octave day, is also called Divine Mercy Sunday.

Liturgical season

Easter

liturgical_season