After a slow evolution toward the way Easter was celebrated around the world pre-pandemic, believers here and beyond are nearly back to normal as they commemorate Jesus Christ’s victory over death.

In 2020, Easter was a virtual lockdown with most holiday church services and other related activities canceled or done virtually.

For people of the Jewish faith, who also are living under the constraints that the coronavirus has wrought, this weekend brings to a close their annual Passover celebration. Passover commemorates Israelites’ liberation by God from slavery in ancient Egypt and their freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses. It is celebrated with a feast called a seder, as well as by prayers, symbols, blessings and other religious-based observances and traditions handed down by generations over the centuries.

For Christians, who observed their most solemn day of the year on Good Friday, which commemorates the day Christ was crucified on Mount Calvary, Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday is a feast of hope.

Hope is a necessity of life both after the pandemic, during a time of historic inflation and increasingly perilous world tensions.

During Easter 2016, Pope Francis reminded Catholics and non-Catholics alike that Easter is a “celebration of God’s mercy and a call to pray for and assist all who suffer.”

The importance of that message cannot be overstated this year. In his 2016 message, the pope said the risen Jesus “makes us sharers of his immortal life and enables us to see with his eyes of love and compassion those who hunger and thirst, strangers and prisoners, the marginalized and the outcast, the victims of oppression and violence.”

As Easter is celebrated, that hope is what’s necessary this day and going forward.