Right around the time we were resigning ourselves to the idea that we would never properly celebrate our anniversary on the actual day, we had one of the best ideas yet in our married life. Instead of continued failed attempts to celebrate on the day, we expanded the celebration of our anniversary to the entire week of the 4th and marked the time not simply as the founding of our marriage, but instead the founding of our family. Thus, the entire eight days (Sunday to Sunday) became a feast for the whole family to be together, to celebrate our bond, and to give thanks for the blessings God has given us. We’ve dubbed the week: Buddfest.

Great feasts have a long tradition in the history of God’s people. For the Jewish people, the great feasts of Tabernacles, Passover, and, later, Hanukkah, were not only celebrated along with feasts such as Purim, Yom Kippur, and Shavuot, they were considered such important aspects of God’s action and their identity as a people that they celebrated as “octaves,” or eight days. Numbers are very important in Scripture, and while the number seven indicates a sense of fullness or completeness, the number eight signifies a new beginning, a leaving behind the sins or difficulties of the past.

In the Christian tradition, we have various feasts, of course, but our biggest feasts (Christmas and Easter) are also celebrated as octaves. Part of the reason for this is that, in both Israel and in the Church, the thing commemorated by the feast is of such great importance that one 24-hour day could not nearly encompass the mystery. Each day of the octave is considered one long day, and so it would be most proper on the Tuesday after Easter to declare that “Christ has risen today!”

The octave day, being part of the one long day of the feast, nevertheless has a special sense of fullness or emphasis about the importance of that feast. For example, the octave day for Christmas is the feast of Mary, Mother of God, which emphasizes the significance of the Incarnation: that the union of Jesus’ human and divine nature is so complete that a human being could be called the Mother of God.

During Easter, the octave day is Divine Mercy Sunday, which commemorates the appearance of Jesus to St. Thomas after he initially denied the resurrection. After Thomas encounters the risen Lord and makes his great declaration of faith, Jesus speaks words that should be a great comfort to all of us: “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.” Divine Mercy Sunday brings to a culmination everything we’ve been focused on since Ash Wednesday. We are sinful and unworthy of friendship with God. However, God came as one of us, to teach us, to give us an example, and ultimately to take on himself the result of our sin. In rising from the dead, his message to the apostles was not one of anger or disappointment that they fled his side in his darkest hour, but rather “Peace” and forgiveness, reconciliation and mercy. In appearing to the apostles, Jesus commissioned them to carry on this mission of mercy and bring the fruits of redemption to all the earth.

In addition to the Gospel accounts of the octave of Easter, our Lord appeared to a Polish nun in 1931 named Faustina Kowalska and asked her to help promote devotion to the Mercy of God. As part of this message, Jesus had some specific requests. Firstly, he asked that an image of him be venerated which depicts the rays of his mercy extending outward. Many believe this image is connected to the encounter he had with St. Thomas the night of that first octave of Easter. Jesus also asked that a special prayer called the Chaplet of Divine Mercy would be promoted, and that individuals spend nine days of prayer, beginning on Good Friday each year and ending on the vigil of the feast of Divine Mercy.

The feast of Divine Mercy is such a gift to us! It is a reminder that we can put our full trust in God because his only purpose is to shower down upon us his healing and reconciling mercy. As we prepare for the end of Lent and the celebrations of Easter this month, why don’t we, individually or as a family, devote ourselves to the full celebration of Easter. One way we can do that is by celebrating our Lord’s rising for the entire week of Easter — dessert every day! Why not light a candle at family meals to remind us not only of the resurrection of Jesus but also of our own baptism which St. Paul teaches is a participation in the dying and rising of Jesus? Another suggestion would be to gather the family every day to pray the chaplet and the novena prayers for Divine Mercy. We can pray, not only that God will lavishly pour down that mercy upon us, but also that we will have the grace to receive what is offered to us by God. Resources for the prayers and feast can be found at thedivinemercy.org and inexpensive prints of the image of Divine Mercy can be found at divinemercyart.org.