Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The
History of Paschal Time
We give the name of Paschal Time to the period between
Easter Sunday and the Saturday following Whit Sunday, It is the most sacred
portion of the Liturgical Year, and the one towards which the whole Cycle
converges. We will easily understand how this is if we reflect on the greatness
of the Easter Feast, which is called the Feast of Feasts and the Solemnity of
Solemnities, in the same manner, says Saint. Gregory, as the most sacred part
of the Temple was called the Holy of holies, and the Book of Sacred Scripture
in which are described the espousals between Christ and the Church, is called
the Canticle of canticles. It is on this day that the mission of the Word
Incarnate attains the object, towards which it has hitherto been unceasingly
tending: mankind is raised up from his fall, and regains what he had lost by
Adam’s sin.
Christmas gave us a Man-God. Three days have scarcely
passed since we witnessed His infinitely Precious Blood shed for our ransom.
But now, on the day of Easter, our Jesus is no longer the Victim of death. he
is a Conqueror that destroys death, the child of sin, and proclaims Life, that
undying life, which He has purchased for us. The humiliation of His
Swathing-bands, the sufferings of His Agony and Cross — these are past. All is
now glory — glory for Himself, and glory also for us. On the Day of Easter God
regains, by the Resurrection of the Man-God, His creation such as He made it at
the beginning: the only vestige now left of death is that likeness to sin which
the Lamb of God deigned to take upon Himself. Neither is it Jesus alone that
returns to eternal life: the whole human race also has risen to immortality
together with our Jesus. By a man came death, says the Apostle, and by a man
the resurrection of the dead: and, as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all
will be made alive (1 Corinthians xv. 21, 22).
The anniversary of this resurrection is therefore the
Great Day, the Day of Joy, the Day by excellence: the Day to which the whole
year looks forward in expectation, and on which its whole economy is formed.
But as it is the holiest of days, since it opens to us the gate of Heaven into
which we will enter because we have risen together with Christ — the Church
would have us come to it well prepared by bodily mortification and by
compunction of heart. It was for this that she instituted the Fast of Lent and
that she bade us, during Septuagesima, look forward to the joy of her Easter, and
be filled with sentiments suitable to the approach of so grand a solemnity. We
obeyed. We have gone through the period of our preparation, and now the Easter
sun has risen on us.
But it was not enough to solemnise the great Day when
Jesus, our Light, rose from the darkness of the tomb: there was another
anniversary which claimed our grateful celebration. The Incarnate Word rose on
the first day of the week — that same day on He, the Uncreated Word of the
Father, had begun the work of the Creation by calling forth Light, and
separating it from Darkness. The first day was thus ennobled by the creation of
Light. It received a second consecration by the Resurrection of Jesus, and from
that time forward Sunday, and not Saturday, was to be the Lord’s
Day. Yes, our resurrection in Jesus which took place on the Sunday gave this
first day a pre-eminence above the others of the week: the divine precept of
the Sabbath was abrogated, together with the other ordinances of the Mosaic
Law, and the Apostles instructed the faithful to keep holy the first Day of the
week which God had dignified with that twofold glory —the Creation and the
Regeneration of the world.
Sunday, then, being the day of Jesus’
Resurrection, the Church chose that in preference to every other for its yearly
commemoration. The Pasch of the Jews, which, in consequence of its being fixed
on the fourteenth of the moon of March (the anniversary of the going out of
Egypt), fell, by turns, on each of the days of the week. The Jewish Pasch was
but a figure: ours is the reality, and puts an end to the figure. The Church,
therefore, broke this her last tie with the Synagogue, and proclaimed her
emancipation by fixing the most solemn of her Feasts on a day which should
never agree with that on which Jews keep their now unmeaning Pasch. The
Apostles decreed that the Christian Pasch should never be celebrated on the
fourteenth of the moon of March, even were that day to be a Sunday, but that it
should be everywhere kept on the Sunday following the day on which the obsolete
calendar of the Synagogue still marks it.
Nevertheless, out of consideration for the many Jews who
had received Baptism and who formed the nucleus of the early Christian Church,
it was resolved that the law regarding the day for keeping the new Pasch,
should be applied prudently and gradually. Jerusalem was soon to be destroyed
by the Romans according to our Saviour’s prediction,
and the new city, which was to rise up from its ruins and receive the Christian
colony would also have its Church, but a Church totally free from the Jewish
element which God had so visibly rejected. In preaching the Gospel and founding
Churches even far beyond the limits of the Roman Empire, the majority of the
Apostles had not to contend with Jewish customs. most of their converts were
from among the Gentiles. Saint Peter, who, in the Council of Jerusalem, had
proclaimed the cessation of the Jewish Law, set up the standard of emancipation
in the city of Rome, so that the Church, which through him, was made the Mother
and Mistress of all Churches, never had any other discipline regarding the
observance of Easter than that laid down by the Apostles, namely, the keeping
it on a Sunday.
There was, however, one province of the Church, which for
a long time stood out against the universal practice: it was Asia Minor. The
Apostle Saint John, who lived for many years at Ephesus where, indeed, he died — had thought it
prudent to tolerate in those parts the Jewish custom of celebrating the Pasch, for
many of the converts had been members of the Synagogue. But the Gentiles
themselves who later on formed the mass of the faithful were strenuous
upholders of this custom which dated from the very foundation of the Church of
Asia Minor. In the course of time, however, this anomaly became a source of
scandal: it savoured of Judaism, and it prevented unity of religious observance
which is always desirable, but particularly so in what regards Lent and Easter.
Pope Saint Victor who governed the Church from the year 193 endeavoured to put
a stop to this abuse. He thought the time had come for establishing unity in so
essential a point of Christian worship. Already, that is, in the year 160,
under Pope Saint Anicetus, the Apostolic See had sought by friendly
negociations, to induce the Churches of Asia Minor to conform to the universal
practice, but it was difficult to
triumph over a prejudice which rested on a tradition held sacred in that
country. Saint Victor, however, resolved to make another attempt. He would put
before them the unanimous agreement which reigned throughout the rest of the
Church. Accordingly, he gave orders that Councils should be convened in the
several countries where the Gospel had been preached, and that the question of
Easter should be examined. Everywhere there was perfect uniformity of practice,
and the historian Eusebius who lived a hundred and fifty years later assures us
that the people of his day used to quote the decisions of the Councils of Rome,
of Gaul, of Achaia, of Pontus, of Palestine, and of Osrhoena in Mesopotamia.
The Council of Ephesus at which Polycrates,
the Bishop of that City, presided, was the only one that opposed the
Pontiff, and disregarded the practice of the universal Church. Deeming it
unwise to give further toleration to the opposition, Victor separated from
communion with the Holy See the refractory Churches of Asia Minor. This severe
penalty, which was not inflicted until Rome had exhausted every other means of
removing the evil, excited the commiseration of several Bishops. Saint Ireneus,
who was then governing the See of Lyons, pleaded for these Churches, which, so
it seemed to him, had sinned only through a want of light, and he obtained from
the Pope the revocation of a measure which seemed too severe.
This indulgence produced the desired effect. In the
following century, Saint Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea, in his Book on the
Pasch written in 276, tells us that the Churches of Asia Minor had then, for
some time past, conformed to the Roman practice. About the same time, and by a
strange co-incidence, the Churches of Syria, Cilicia and Mesopotamia gave
scandal by again leaving the Christian and Apostolic observance of Easter, and
returning to the Jewish rite of the fourteenth of the March Moon. This schism
in the Liturgy grieved the Church, and one of the points to which the Council
of Nicaea directed its first attention was the promulgating the universal
obligation of celebrating Easter on the Sunday. The Decree was unanimously
passed and the Fathers of the Council ordained, that “all controversy being
laid aside, the Brethren in the East should solemnise the Pasch on the same day
as the Romans, the Alexandrians, and the rest of the Faithful.”
So important seemed this question, inasmuch as it affected
the very essence of the Christian Liturgy, that Saint Athanasius, assigning the
reasons which had led to the calling of the Council of Nicaea, mentions these
two — the condemnation of the Arian heresy, and the establishing uniformity in
the observance of Easter. The Bishop of Alexandria was commissioned by the
Council to see to the drawing up of astronomical tables, by which the precise
day of Easter might be fixed for each future year. The reason of this choice
was because the astronomers of Alexandria were looked upon as the most exact in
their calculations. These tables were to be sent to the Pope, and he would
address letters to the several Churches, instructing them as to the uniform
celebration of the great Festival of Christendom. Thus was the unity of the
Church made manifest by the unity of the holy liturgy and the Apostolic See,
which is the foundation of the first, was likewise the source of the second.
But, even previous to the Council of Nicaea, the Roman Pontiff had addressed to
all the Churches, every year, a Paschal Encyclical instructing them as to the
day on which the solemnity of the Resurrection was to be kept. This we learn
from the synodical Letter of the Fathers of the great Council held at Aries, in
314. The Letter is addressed to Pope Saint Sylvester, and contains the
following passage: “In the first place, we beg that the observance of the Pasch
of the Lord may be uniform, both as to time and day, in the whole worlds and
that You would, according to the custom, address Letters to all concerning this
matter.”
This custom, however, was not kept up for any length of
time, after the Council of Nicaea. The want of precision in astronomical
calculations occasioned confusion in the method of fixing the day of Easter. It
is true, this great Festival was always kept on a Sunday, nor did any Church
think of celebrating it on the same day as the Jews, but owing to therebeing no uniform understanding
as to the exact time of the VYernal Equinox, it happened, some years, that the
feast of Easter was not kept in all places on the same day. By degrees there
crept in a deviation from the rule laid down by the Council, of taking the 21st
of March as the day of the Equinox. There was needed a reform in the calendar,
and no one seemed competent to bring it about. Cycles were drawn up
contradictory to one another. Rome and Alexandria had each their own system of
calculation. So that, some years, Easter was not kept with that perfect
uniformity which the Nicene Fathers had so strenuously laboured for: and yet,
this variation was not the result of anything like party-spirit.
The West followed Rome. The Churches of Ireland and
Scotland, which had been misled by faulty cycles, were, at length, brought into
uniformity. Finally, science was sufficiently advanced in the sixteenth century
for Pope Gregory XIII to undertake a reform of the calendar. The Equinox had to
be restored to the 21st of March as the Council of Nicaea had prescribed. The
Pope effected this by publishing a Bull, dated February 24, 1581, and in which
he ordered that ten days of the following year, namely from the 4th to the 15th
of October, should be suppressed. He thus restored the work of Julius Caesar,
who had, in his day, turned his attention to the rectification of the year.
Easter was the great object of the reform, or, as it is called, the New Style,
achieved by Gregory XIII. The principles and regulations of the Nicene Council
were again brought to bear on this the capital question of the liturgical year,
and the Roman Pontiff thus gave to the whole world the intimation of Easter,
not for one year only, but for centuries. Heretical nations were forced to
acknowledge the divine power of the Church in this solemn act which interested
both religion and society. They protested against the calendar, as they had
protested against the rule of faith. England and the Lutheran States of Germany
preferred following for many years a calendar which was evidently at fault,
rather than accept the new style, which they acknowledged to be indispensable,
but it was the work of a Pope!
The only nation in Europe that keeps up the old style is
Russia. All this shows us how important it was to fix the precise day of
Easter, and God has several times shown by miracles that the date of so sacred
a feast was not a matter of indifference, During the ages when the confusion of
the cycles and the want of correct astronomical computations occasioned great
uncertainty as to the Vernal Equinox, miraculous events more than once supplied
the deficiencies of science and authority. In a Letter to Saint Leo the Great
in 444, Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybea in Sicily, relates that under the
Pontificate of Saint Zozimus — Honorius being Consul for the eleventh, and
Constantius for the second time — the real day of Easter was miraculously
revealed to the people of one of the Churches there. In the midst of a
mountainous and thickly wooded district of the Island was a village called
Meltinas. Its church was of the poorest, but it was dear to God. Every year on
the night preceding Easter Sunday, as the Priest went to the Baptistery to
bless the font, it was found to be miraculously filled with water, for there
were no human means with which it could be supplied. As soon as Baptism was
administered the water disappeared of itself and left the font perfectly dry.
In the year just mentioned, the people, misled by a wrong calculation,
assembled for the ceremonies of Easter Eve. The Prophecies having been read,
the priest and his flock repaired to the baptistery, but the font was empty.
They waited, expecting the miraculous flowing of the water with which the
catechumens were to receive the grace of regeneration. But they waited in vain,
and no Baptism was administered. On the following 22nd of April, (the tenth of
the Kalends of May), the font was found to be filled to the brim, and thereby the
people understood that that was the true Easter for that year.
Cassiodorus writing in the name of king Athalaric to a
certain Severus, relates a similar miracle which happened every year on Easter
Eve in Lucania, near the small Island of Leucothea, at a place called
Marcilianum. There was a large fountain there whose water was so clear that the
air itself was not more transparent. It was used as the font for the
administration of Baptism on Easter Night. As soon as the priest, standing
under the rock with which nature had canopied the fountain, began the prayers
of the Blessing, the water, as though taking part in the transports of the
Easter joy, arose in the font so that, if previously it was to the level of the
fifth step, it was seen to rise up to the seventh, impatient, as it were, to
effect those wonders of grace of which it was the chosen instrument. God would
show by this that even inanimate creatures can share, when He so wills it, in
the holy gladness of the greatest of all Days.
Saint Gregory of Tours tells us of a font which existed
even then in a church of Andalusia, in a place called Osen, and by which God
miraculously certified to his people the true day of Easter. On the Maundy
Thursday of each year, the Bishop, accompanied by the faithful, repaired to
this church. The bed of the font was built in the form of a cross and was paved
with mosaics. It was carefully examined to see that it was perfectly dry, and
after several prayers had been recited, every one left the church and the
Bishop sealed the door with his seal. On Holy Saturday the Pontiff returned,
accompanied by his flock. The seal was examined and the door was opened. The
font was found to be filled, even above the level of the floor, and yet the
water did not overflow. The Bishop pronounced the exorcisms over the miraculous
water, and poured the Chrism into it. The catechumens were then baptised and as
soon as the sacrament had been administered, the water immediately disappeared
and no-one could tell what became of it. Similar miracles were witnessed in
several churches in the East. John Moschus, a writer in the seventh century,
speaks of a baptismal font in Lycia which was thus filled every Easter Eve, but
the water remained in the font during the whole fifty days, and suddenly disappeared
after the Festival of Pentecost.
We alluded in our History of Passiontide to the decrees
passed by the Christian Emperors which forbade all law proceedings during the
fortnight of Easter, that is, from Palm Sunday to the Octave Day of the
Resurrection. Saint Augustine, in a sermon he preached on this Octave, exhorts
the faithful to extend to the whole year this suspension of law-suits, disputes
and enmities, which the civil law interdicted during these fifteen days. The
Church puts upon all her children the obligation of receiving Holy Communion at
Easter. This precept is based upon the words of our Redeemer, who left it to
His Church to determine the time of the year when Christians should receive the
Blessed Sacrament. In the early Ages, Communion was frequent, and in some
places even daily. By degrees, the fervour of the faithful grew cold towards
this august Mystery, as we gather from a decree of the Council of Agatha (Agde)
held in 506, where it is defined that those of the laity who will not approach
Communion at Christmas, Easter and Pentecost
are to be considered as having ceased to be Catholics. This Decree of
the Council of Agatha was accepted as the law of almost the entire Western
Church. We find it quoted among the regulations drawn up by Egbert, Archbishop
of York, as also in the third Council of Tours. In many places, however,
Communion was obligatory for the Sundays of Lent, and for the last three Days
of Holy Week, independently of that which was to be made on the Easter
Festival.
It was in the year 1215, in the fourth General Council of
Lateran, that the Church, seeing the ever growing indifference of her children,
decreed with regret that Christians should be strictly bound to Communion only
once in the year, and that that Communion of obligation should be made at
Easter. In order to show the faithful that this is the uttermost limit of her
condescension to lukewarmness, she declares, in the same Council, that he that
will presume to break this law may be forbidden to enter a church during life,
and be deprived of Christian burial after death, as he would be if he had, of
his own accord, separated himself from the exterior link of Catholic unity.
[Two centuries after this Pope Eugenius IV, in the Constitution Digna Fide
given in the year 1440, allowed this annual Communion to be made on any day
between Palm Sunday and Low Sunday inclusively. In England, by permission of
the Holy See, the time for making the Easter Communion extends from Ash
Wednesday to Low Sunday.] These regulations of a General Council show how
important is the duty of the Easter Communion but, at the same time, they make
us shudder at the thought of the millions, throughout the Catholic world, who
brave each year the threats of the Church by refusing to comply with a duty
which would both bring life to their souls, and serve as a profession of their
faith. And when we again reflect on how many even of those who make their
Easter Communion, have paid no more attention to the Lenten Penance than if
there were no such obligation in existence, we cannot help feeling sad, and we
wonder within ourselves, how long God will bear with such infringements of the
Christian Law?
The fifty days between Easter and Pentecost have ever been
considered by the Church as most holy. The first week, which is more expressly
devoted to celebrating our Lord’s Resurrection, is kept up as
one continued feast, but the remainder of the fifty days is also marked with
special honours. To say nothing of the joy which is the characteristic of this
period of the year, and of which the Alleluia is the expression — Christian
tradition has assigned to Eastertide two practices which distinguish it from
every other Season. The first is that fasting is not permitted during the
entire interval: it is an extension of the ancient precept of never fasting on
a Sunday, and the whole of Eastertide is considered as one long Sunday. This
practice, which would seem to have come down from the time of the Apostles, was
accepted by the Religious Rules of both East and West, even by the severest.
The second consists in not kneeling at the Divine Office from Easter to
Pentecost. The Eastern Churches have faithfully kept up the practice, even to
this day. It was observed for many ages by the Western Churches also, but now
it is little more than a remnant. The Latin Church has long since admitted
genuflections in the Mass during Easter time. The few vestiges of the ancient
discipline in this regard, which still exist, are not noticed by the faithful,
inasmuch as they seldom assist at the Canonical Hours.
Eastertide, then, is like one continued feast. It is the
remark made by Tertullian in the third century. He is reproaching those
Christians who regretted having renounced, by their Baptism, the festivities of
the pagan year, and he thus addresses them: “If you love feasts, you will find
plenty among us Christians, not merely
feasts that last only for a day, but such as continue for several days
together. The pagans keep each of their feasts once in the year, but you have
to keep each of yours many times over, for you have the eight days of its
celebration. Put all the feasts of the Gentiles together, and they do not
amount to our fifty days of Pentecost.” Saint Ambrose speaking on the same
subject, says: “If the Jews are not satisfied with the Sabbath of each week,
but keep also one which lasts a whole month, and another which lasts a whole
year, how much more ought not we to honour our Lord’s
Resurrection? Hence our ancestors have taught us to celebrate the fifty days of
Pentecost as a continuation of Easter. They are seven weeks, and the Feast of
Pentecost commences the eighth.
* * * * During these fifty days, the Church
observes no fast, as neither does she on any Sunday, for it is the Day on which
our Lord rose: and all these fifty Days are like so many Sundays.”
The Mystery of Paschal Time
Of all the Seasons of the liturgical year, Eastertide is
by far the richest in mystery. We might even say that Easter is the summit of
the mystery of the sacred liturgy. The Christian who is happy enough to enter,
with his whole mind and heart, into the knowledge and the love of the Paschal
Mystery, has reached the very centre of the supernatural life. Hence it is that
the Church uses every effort in order to effect this: what she has hitherto done
was all intended as a preparation for Easter. The holy longings of Advent, the
sweet joys of Christmas, the severe truths of Septuagesima, the contrition and
penance of Lent, the heart-rending sight of the Passion — all were given us as
preliminaries, as paths, to the sublime and glorious Pasch, which is now ours.
And that we might be convinced of the supreme importance of this Solemnity, God
willed that the Christian Easter and Pentecost should be prepared by those of
the Jewish Law: a thousand five hundred years of typical beauty prefigured the
reality: and that reality is ours!
During these days, then, we have brought before us the two
great manifestations of God’s goodness towards mankind —
the Pasch of Israel, and the Christian Pasch. The Pentecost of Sinai, and the
Pentecost of the Church. We will have occasion to show how the ancient figures
were fulfilled in the realities of the new Easter and Pentecost, and how the
twilight of the Mosaic Law made way for the full day of the Gospel: but we
cannot resist the feeling of holy reverence at the bare thought that the
solemnities we have now to celebrate are more than three thousand years old,
and that they are to be renewed every year from this till the voice of the
Angel will be heard proclaiming: “Time will be no more! (Apocalype x. 6) The
gates of eternity will then be thrown open.
Eternity in Heaven is the true Pasch: hence our Pasch here
on earth is the Feast of feasts, the Solemnity of solemnities. The human race
was dead. It was the victim of that sentence by which it was condemned to lie
mere dust in the tomb. The gates of life were shut against it. But see the Son
of God rises from His grave and takes possession of eternal life. Nor is He the
only one that is to die no more, for, as the Apostle teaches us, He is the
first-born from the dead (Colossians i. 18). The Church would therefore have us
consider ourselves as having already risen with our Jesus, and as having
already got possession of eternal life. The holy Fathers bid us look on these
fifty days of Easter as the image of our eternal happiness. They are days that
are devoted exclusively to joy. Every sort of sadness is forbidden, and the
Church cannot speak to her Divine Spouse without joining to her words that
glorious cry of heaven, the Alleluia with which, as the holy liturgy says, the streets and squares of the heavenly
Jerusalem resound without ceasing. We have been forbidden the use of this
joyous word during the past nine weeks. It behoved us to die with Christ: but
now that we have risen together with Him from the tomb, and that we are
resolved to die no more that death which kills the soul and caused our Redeemer
to die on the Cross, we have a right to our Alleluia.
The Providence of God, who has established harmony between
the visible world and the supernatural work of grace, willed that the
Resurrection of our Lord should take place at that particular season of the
year when even nature herself seems to rise from the grave. The meadows give
forth their verdure, the trees resume their foliage, the birds fill the air
with their songs, and the sun, the type of our Triumphant Jesus pours out His
floods of light on our earth made new by lovely Spring. At Christmas, the sun
had little power, and His stay with us was short. It harmonised with the humble
birth of our Emmanuel who came among us in the midst of night, and shrouded in
swaddling clothes: but now He is as a giant that runs his way, and there is
no-one that can hide himself from his heat (Psalm xviii. 6, 7). Speaking in the
Canticle to the faithful soul, and inviting her to take her part in this new
life which He is now imparting to every creature, our Lord Himself says:
“Arise, my dove, and come! Winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The
flowers have appeared in our land. The voice of the turtle is heard. The
fig-tree has put forth her green figs. The vines, in flower, yield their sweet
smell. Arise thou, and come!” (Canticles ii. 10, 13).
In the preceding chapter
we explained why our Saviour chose the Sunday for His Resurrection by
which He conquered death and proclaimed life to the world. It was on this
favoured day of the week that He had created the light: by selecting it now for
the commencement of the new life He graciously imparts to man, He would show us
that Easter is the renewal of the entire creation. Not only is the anniversary
of His glorious Resurrection to be, henceforward, the greatest of days, but
every Sunday throughout the year is to be a sort of Easter, a holy and sacred
day. The Synagogue, by God’s command, kept holy the
Saturday, or the Sabbath, and this in honour of God’s resting
after the six days of the creation, but the Church, the Spouse, is commanded to
honour the work of her Lord. She allows the Saturday to pass — it is the day
her Jesus rested in the sepulchre: but now that she is illumined with the
brightness of the Resurrection, she devotes to the contemplation of his work
the first day of the week. It is the day of Light, for on it He called forth
material Light (which was the first manifestation of life upon chaos), and on
the same, He that is the Brightness of the Father (Hebrews i. 3), and the Light
of the World (John viii. 12), rose from the darkness of the tomb.
Let then the week with its Sabbath pass by. What we
Christians want, is the Eighth Day, the Day that is beyond the measure of time,
the Day of eternity, the Day whose Light is not intermittent or partial, but
endless and unlimited. Thus speak the holy Fathers when explaining the substitution of the Sunday
for the Saturday. It was, indeed right that man should keep, as the Day of his
weekly and spiritual repose, that on which the Creator of the visible world had
taken His divine rest, but it was a commemoration of the material Creation
only. The Eternal Word comes down in the world that He had created. He comes
with the rays of His divinity clouded beneath the humble veil of our flesh. He
comes to fulfil the figures of the first Covenant. Before abrogating the
Sabbath He would observe it, as He did every tittle of the Law. He would spend it
as the Day of Rest, after the work of His Passion, in the silence of the
sepulchre: but early on the Eighth Day He rises to life, and the life is one of
Glory. “Let us,” says the learned and pious Abbot Rupert, “leave the Jews to
enjoy the ancient Sabbath, which is a memorial of the visible Creation. They
know not how to love or desire or merit aught but earthly things. * * * They
would not recognise this world’s Creator as their King,
because he said Blessed are the Poor! and Woe to the Rich! But our Sabbath has
been transferred from the Seventh to the Eighth Day, and the Eighth is the
First. And rightly was the Seventh changed into the Eighth, because we
Christians put our joy in a better work than the Creation of the world.
* * *
Let the lovers of the world keep a Sabbath for its Creation: but our joy is in
the Salvation of the world, for our life, yea and our Rest, is hidden with
Christ in God.”
The mystery of the Seventh followed by an Eighth Day, as
the holy one, is again brought before us by the number of weeks which form
Eastertide. These Weeks are seven: they form a week of weeks, and their morrow
is again a Sunday, the Feast of the glorious Pentecost. These mysterious
numbers which God Himself fixed when He instituted the first Pentecost after the
first Pasch were followed by the Apostles when they regulated the Christian
Easter, as we learn from Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Saint Isidore, Amalarius,
Rabanus Maurus, and from all the ancient interpreters of the mysteries of the
holy Liturgy. “If we multiply seven by seven,” says Saint Hilary, “we will find
that this holy Season is truly the Sabbath of Sabbaths. But what completes it,
and raises it to the plenitude of the Gospel, is the Eighth day which follows.
Eighth and First both together in itself. The Apostles have given so sacred an
institution to these seven weeks that during them no-one should kneel or mar by
fasting the spiritual joy of this long Feast. The same institution has been
extended to each Sunday, for this day which follows the Saturday has become, by
the application of the progress of the Gospel, the completion of the Saturday,
and the day of feast and joy.”
Thus, then, the whole Season of Easter is marked with the
mystery expressed by each Sunday of the tear. Sunday is to us the great day of
our week because beautified with the splendour of our Lord’s
Resurrection, of which the creation of material light was but a type. We have
already said that this institution was prefigured in the Old Law, although the
Jewish people were not in any way aware of it. Their Pentecost fell on the
fiftieth day after the Pasch: it was the morrow of the seven weeks. Another
figure of our Eastertide was the year of Jubilee which God bade Moses prescribe
to his people. Each fiftieth year the houses and lands that had been alienated
during the preceding forty-nine returned to their original owners, and those
Israelites who had been compelled by
poverty to sell themselves as slaves, recovered their liberty. This year, which
was properly called the Sabbatical year was the sequel of the preceding seven
weeks of years, and was thus the image of our Eighth Day on which the Son of
Mary, by His Resurrection, redeemed us from the slavery of the tomb, and
restored us to the inheritance of our immortality.
The rites peculiar to Eastertide in the present discipline
of the Church, are two: the unceasing repetition of the Alleluia of which we
have already spoken, and the colour of the vestments used for its two great
solemnities — white for the first, and red for the second. White is appropriate
to the Resurrection: it is the mystery of eternal Light, which knows neither
spot nor shadow. it is the mystery that produces in a faithful soul the
sentiment of purity and joy. Pentecost, which gives us the Holy Spirit, the
consuming Fire (Hebrews xii. 29) — is symbolised by the red vestments which
express the mystery of the Divine Paraclete coming down in the form of fiery
tongues upon them that were assembled in the Cenacle. With regard to the
ancient usage of not kneeling during Paschal Time we have already said that there is a mere vestige of it now left
in the Latin Liturgy. The saints’ feasts, which were interrupted
during Holy Week, are likewise excluded from the first eight days of
Eastertide, but these ended, we will have them in rich abundance, as a bright
constellation of stars round the divine Sun of Justice, our Jesus. They will
accompany us in our celebration of His admirable Ascension, but such is the
grandeur of the mystery of Pentecost that from the Eve of that Day they will be
again interrupted until the expiration of Paschal Time.
The rites of the primitive Church with reference to the
Neophytes, who were regenerated by Baptism on the Night of Easter, are
extremely interesting and instructive. But as they are peculiar to the two
Octaves of Easter and Pentecost, we will explain them as they are brought
before us by the Liturgy of those days.
Practice during Paschal Time
The practice for this holy Season mainly consists in the
spiritual joy which it should produce in every soul that is risen with Jesus.
This joy is a foretaste of eternal happiness, and the Christian ought to
consider it a duty to keep it up within him, by ardently seeking after that
life which is in our Divine Head, and by carefully shunning sin which causes
death.
During the last nine weeks, we have mourned for our sins
and done penance for them. We have followed Jesus to Calvary. But now our holy
Mother the Church is urgent in bidding us rejoice. She herself has laid aside
all sorrow. The voice of her weeping is changed into the song of a delighted
Spouse. In order that she might impart this joy to all her children, she has
taken their weakness into account. After reminding them of the necessity of
expiation, she gave them forty days in which to do penance, and then, taking
off all the restraint of Lenten mortification, she brings us to Easter as to a
land where there is nothing but gladness, light, life, joy, calm and the sweet
hope of immortality. Thus does she produce in those of her children who have no
elevation of soul sentiments in harmony with the great Feast, such as the most
perfect feel, and by this means, all, both fervent and tepid, unite their
voices in one same hymn of praise to our Risen Jesus.
The great Liturgist of the twelfth century, Rupert, Abbot
of Deutz, thus speaks of the pious artifice used by the Church to infuse the
spirit of Easter into all: “There are certain carnal minds that seem unable to
open their eyes to spiritual things, unless roused by some unusual excitement,
and for this reason, the Church makes use of such means. Thus, the Lenten Fast,
which we offer up to God as our yearly tithe, goes on till the most sacred
Night of Easter. Then follow fifty days without so much as one single fast.
Hence it happens that while the body is being mortified and is to continue to
be so till Easter Night — that holy night is eagerly looked forward to even by
the carnal-minded. They long for it to come and, meanwhile, they carefully
count each of the Forty Days as a wearied traveller does the miles. Thus, the
sacred Solemnity is sweet to all, and dear to all, and desired by all, as light
is to them that walk in darkness, as a fount of living water is to them that
thirst, and as a tent which the Lord has pitched for wearied wayfarers.”
What a happy time was that, when, as Saint Bernard
expresses it, there was not one in the whole Christian army that neglected his
Easter duty, and when all, both just and sinners, walked together in the path
of the Lenten observances! Alas, those days are gone, and Easter has not the
same effect on the people of our generation! The reason is, that a love of ease
and a false conscience lead so many Christians to treat the law of Lent with as
much indifference as though there were no such law existing. Hence Easter comes
upon them as a feast —it may be as a great feast, but that is all. They
experience little of that thrilling joy which fills the heart of the Church
during this Season, and which she evinces in every thing she does. And if this
be their case even on the glorious day itself, how can it be expected that they
should keep up, for the whole Fifty, the spirit of Gladness, which is the very
essence of Easter? They have not observed the fast or the abstinence of Lent:
the mitigated form in which the Church now presents them to her children in
consideration of their weakness was too severe for them! They sought, or they
took, a total dispensation from this law of Lenten mortification, and without
regret or remorse. The Alleluia returns, and it finds no response in their
souls: how could it ? Penance has not done its work of purification. It has not
spiritualised them. How then could they follow their Risen Jesus whose life is
henceforth more of heaven than of earth?
But these reflections are too sad for such a Season as
this: let us beseech our Risen Jesus to enlighten these souls with the rays of
His victory over the world and the flesh, and to raise them up to Himself. No,
nothing must now distract us from joy. Can the children of the bridegroom mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them? (Matthew ix. 15) Jesus is to be with us
for forty days. He is to suffer no more, and die no more. Let our feelings be
in keeping with His now endless glory and bliss. True, He is to leave us, He is
to ascend to the right hand of His Father, but He will not leave us orphans. He
will send us the Divine Comforter who will abide with us forever (John xiv. 16‒18).
These sweet and consoling words must be our Easter text: The children of the
Bridegroom cannot mourn, as long as the Bridegroom is with us. They are the key
to the whole liturgy of this holy Season. We must have them ever before us, and
we will find by experience that the joy of Easter is as salutary as the
contrition and penance of Lent. Jesus on the Cross, and Jesus in the
Resurrection,— it is ever the same Jesus, but what He wants from us now is that
we should keep near Him, in company with His Blessed Mother, His disciples and
Magdalene, who are in ecstasies of delight at His Triumph, and have forgotten
the sad days of His Passion.
But this Easter of ours will have an end. The bright
vision of our Risen Jesus will pass away and all that will be left to us, will
be the recollection of His ineffable glory, and of the wonderful familiarity
with which He treated us. What will we do, when He who was our very Life and
Light leaves us and ascends to heaven?
Be of good heart, Christians! You must look forward to another Easter. Each
year will give you a repetition of what you now enjoy. Easter will follow
Easter, and bring you, at last, to that Easter in Heaven, which is never to
have an end, and of which these happy ones of earth are a mere foretaste. Nor
is this all. Listen to the Church. In one of her prayers she reveals to us the
great secret, how we may perpetuate our Easters, even here in our banishment:
“Grant to your servants, God, that they may keep up, by their manner of living,
the Mystery they have received by their believing” (Romans vi. 6). So, then,
the mystery of Easter is to be ever visible on this earth: our Risen Jesus
ascends to heaven, but He leaves upon us the impress of His Resurrection, and
we must retain it within us until He again visits us.
And how could it be that we should not retain this divine
impress within us? Are not all the mysteries of our Divine Master ours also?
From His very first coming in the Flesh He has made us sharers in everything He
has done. He was born in Bethlehem: we were born together with Him. He was
crucified: our old man was crucified with Him (Romans vi. 4). He was buried: we
were buried with Him. And, therefore, when He rose from the grave, we also
received the grace that we should walk in the newness of life.
Such is the teaching of the Apostle, who thus continues:
“We know that Christ rising again from the dead, dies now no more; death will
no more have dominion over him: for in that he died to sin, (that is, for sin),
he died once; but in that he lives, he lives unto God (Romans vi. 9, 10). He is
our Head, and we are His members: we share in what is His. To die again by sin
would be to renounce Him, to separate ourselves from Him, to forfeit that Death
and Resurrection of His which He mercifully willed should be ours. Let us,
therefore, preserve within us that life, which is the life of our Jesus, and,
yet, which belongs to us as our own
treasure; for He won it by conquering death, and then gave it to us with all
His other merits. You, then, who, before Easter, were sinners, but have now
returned to the life of grace — see that you die no more: let your actions
bespeak your Resurrection. And you, to whom the Paschal Solemnity has brought
growth in grace, show this increase of more abundant life by your principles
and your conduct. ’Tis thus all will walk in the
newness of life.
With this for the present we take leave of the lessons
taught us by the Resurrection of Jesus: the rest we reserve for the humble
commentary we shall have to make on the Liturgy of this holy season. We will
then see, more and more clearly, not only our duty of imitating our Divine
Master’s Resurrection, but the magnificence of this
grandest Mystery of the Man-God. Easter, with its three admirable
manifestations of divine love and power, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and
the Descent of the Holy Ghost, yes, Easter is the perfection of the work of our
redemption.
Everything, both in the order of time and in the workings
of the liturgy has been a preparation for Easter. The thousands of years that
followed the promise made by God to our First Parents were crowned by the event
that we are now to celebrate. All that the Church has been doing for us from
the very commencement of Advent had this same glorious event in view, and now
that we have come to it, our expectations are more than realised, and the power
and wisdom of God are brought before us so vividly, that our former knowledge
of them seems nothing in comparison with our present appreciation and love of
them. The Angels themselves are dazzled by the grand Mystery as the Church
tells us in one of her Easter Hymns, where she says: “The Angels gaze with wonder
on the change wrought in mankind: it was flesh that sinned, and now Flesh takes
all sin away, and the God that reigns is the God made Flesh.”
Eastertide, too, belongs to what is called the
Illuminative Life. Nay, it is the most important part of that life for it not
only manifests, as the last four seasons of the liturgical year have done, the
humiliations and the sufferings of the Man-God: it shows Him to us in all His
grand glory. It gives us to see Him expressing, in His own sacred Humanity, the
highest degree of the creature’s transformation into His God.
The coming of the Holy Ghost will bring additional
brightness to this Illumination. It shows us the relations that exist between
the soul and the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. And here we see the way
and the progress of a faithful soul. She was made an adopted child of the
Heavenly Father. She was initiated into all the duties and mysteries of her
high vocation by the lessons and examples of the Incarnate Word. She was
perfected, by the visit and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. From this there
result those several Christian exercises which produce within her an imitation
of her divine model, and prepare her for that union to which she is invited by
Him, who gave to them that received Him power to be made sons of God, by a
birth that is not of blood, nor of the flesh, but of God (John i. 12, 13).
