The Catholic Church on Sunday kicked off the Easter season, which runs 50 days until Pentecost.

“Rejoice! Alleluia! Praise God for His ultimate sacrifice, and join us in praise for this beautiful start to the Easter season,” the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said on Facebook to greet the season. “Easter lesson: Celebrate! Enjoy times with family and friends, celebrate Christ’s resurrection, and go forth as an Easter people."

The Resurrection is a key part of Easter, but it also starts the Eastertide that leads up to Pentecost.

“Let us proclaim ‘He is Risen’ throughout this Octave & for the entire Easter Season of 50 days until Pentecost,” Tyler Bishop Joseph Strickland said on Twitter as he welcomed the start of the longest season in the liturgical calendar. “Easter is not just a day but Jesus’s Resurrection ushers in a New Day for all humanity for all time. Let us strive to live in the Light of His Resurrection always!” 

The Easter season begins with the Easter Octave, an eight-day period that starts on Easter Sunday and lasts through Divine Mercy Sunday, the National Catholic Register said. The season is significant because it marks the enduring nature of Jesus' resurrection, lasting 50 days, compared to the 40-day Lenten season. The Anglican Compass said in a report that Jesus explained the difference between the seasons by declaring that fasting would eventually end, while the Great Feast of the Lamb signifies eternity and would remain.

Eastertide lasts for precisely 50 days because after Jesus was resurrected, he spent 40 days on earth before he ascended to the right hand of the Father. Another 10 days passed before Pentecost arrived, which marks the day that the Holy Spirit is said to have descended upon the apostles as they were gathered around Mary, the mother of God. Pentecost will fall on May 28 this year.

"As Jesus was raised from the dead, we walk with confidence, in what St. Paul called ‘newness of life,’ following in Jesus’ footsteps, our lives now an adventure destined for heaven and the love that never ends," José H. Gomez, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, wrote in an Angelus newsletter article. "These next 50 days, from Resurrection Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, are meant to be lived as one long feast, a ‘great Sunday,’ as the Church Father St. Athanasius put it.”