For Christians, Easter is not just another holiday. It is the central event of history: the day death was defeated, and the stone was rolled away.
In Jerusalem, in 33 AD, there was a violent earthquake. An angel rolled back the stone from Jesus’ tomb and said to the women gathered there: “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said.” In that moment, everything changed. The Son of God won victory over death and secured salvation for all mankind.
Easter changed reality itself. It is the feast of feasts. The solemnity of solemnities. The highest and most important day in the Christian faith. For billions of Christians across centuries, that truth has shaped not only private belief, but culture, law, art, family life, and civilization itself.
That’s why we’ve introduced the Easter Monday Act, which would make the day following Easter a federal holiday. Currently, we have federal holidays on New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and many other wonderful celebrations. But as Easter always falls on a Sunday, we don’t set aside a day of celebration in federal law.
This is a problem, first and foremost, because the law is a teacher. It gradually habituates people, either toward the good, true, and beautiful or toward the bad, false, and ugly. There is no neutral. Law is not simply administrative or procedural, it shapes our very soul as a nation.
The current public calendar does not reflect Easter’s importance in the lives of millions of Americans. Our bill acknowledges Easter’s singular and extraordinary importance and makes it clear to millions of Americans that honoring the Resurrected Christ is a national priority.
This isn’t radical or partisan. More than 80% of Americans celebrate Easter. The United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Australia, and Canada all celebrate Easter Monday as a public holiday.
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Passing the Easter Monday Act would also have many practical benefits.
Currently, our law forces millions of American families who travel to celebrate Easter to rush home on Sunday to make it to work the next day. Adding to the chaos, many schools already give students Easter Monday off, which leaves working parents scrambling for childcare.
This bill fixes these problems. We envision giving families the breathing room to be truly present with their relatives, in their churches, and at their dinner tables.
That omission is especially striking for another reason: March and April are the only consecutive two-month block on the federal calendar without a legal public holiday, while Easter falls every year somewhere in that exact span. Easter Monday would fill that gap in a way that is both natural and rooted in the country’s deepest traditions, benefiting all Americans.
Most importantly, though, the Easter Monday Act will serve as a reminder that just as Christ continued appearing to his apostles for 40 days after his resurrection, our celebration of Easter does not end at the stroke of midnight.
That is one reason this legislation matters. It is modest, but it points in the right direction. It says that our public life should not be embarrassed by the Christian faith that helped shape our nation. It says that Christianity’s most sacred day deserves more than a hurried Sunday followed by a Monday morning scramble. And it says that families should have the space to mark Easter as something more than a weekend interruption.
Moreover, now is the perfect time to send that message, as we approach Easter Sunday.
In seven years, the world will mark the 2,000th anniversary of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When that moment arrives, it will be one of the most consequential events in the history of Christianity — a cause for tremendous celebration.
This anniversary should be an occasion for all Christians to come together and renew confidence in the faith that saved the world, the moral inheritance that shaped Western civilization, and the unique freedom in Christ that helped Americans create the most free and noble nation on earth.
Passing the Easter Monday Act represents a recognition of that tremendous opportunity — and a first step toward grasping the call the Lord has given our great nation.
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Senator Eric Schmitt is currently serving his first term in the U.S. Senate representing the state of Missouri.
Congressman Riley Moore is currently serving his first term in Congress as the Representative of the 2nd district of West Virginia.
