Dom Prosper Gueranger:
So ample and so profound is the mystery of the glorious Pasch, that an entire week may well be spent in its meditation. Yesterday we limited ourselves to our Redeemer’s rising from the tomb and showing Himself in six different apparitions to them that were dear to Him. We will continue to give Him the adoration, gratitude and love which are so justly due to Him for the triumph, which is both His and ours: but it also behoves us respectfully to study the lessons conveyed by the Resurrection of our Divine Master, that thus the light of the great mystery may the more plentifully shine upon us, and our joy be greater.
And first of all, what is the Pasch? The Scriptures tell us that it is the immolation of the Lamb. To understand the Pasch we must first understand the mystery of the Lamb. From the earliest ages of the Christian Church we find the Lamb represented in the mosaics and frescoes of the Basilicas as the symbol of Christ’s sacrifice and triumph. Its attitude of sweet meekness expressed the love with which our Jesus shed His blood for us, but it was put standing on a green hill, with the four rivers of Paradise flowing from beneath its feet, signifying the four Gospels which have made known the glory of His Name throughout the earth. At a later period, the Lamb was represented holding a cross to which was attached a banner: and this is the form in which we now have the symbol of the Lamb of God.
Ever since sin entered the world, man has need of the Lamb. Without the Lamb he never could have inherited heaven, but would have been, for all eternity, an object of God’s just anger. In the very beginning of the world the just Abel drew down on himself the mercy of God by offering on a sod- made altar the fairest Lamb of his flock: he himself was sacrificed, as a Lamb, by the murderous hand of his brother, and thus became a type of our Divine Lamb, Jesus, who was slain by His own Israelite Brethren. When Abraham ascended the mountain to make the sacrifice commanded him by God, he immolated on the altar, prepared for Isaac, the ram he found amid the thorns. Later on God spoke to Moses and revealed to him the Pasch: it consisted of a Lamb that was to be slain and eaten. A few days back, we had read to us the passage from the Book of Exodus, where God gives this rite to His people. The Paschal Lamb was to be without blemish. Its blood was to be sprinkled as a protection against the destroying Angel, and its flesh was to be eaten. This was the first Pasch. It was most expressive as a figure, but void of reality. For fifteen hundred years was it celebrated by God’s people, and the spiritual-minded among the Jews knew it to be the type of a future Lamb.
In the age of the great Prophets, Isaias prayed God to fulfil the promise he made at the beginning of the world. We united in this his sublime and inspired prayer, when, during Advent, the Church read to us his magnificent prophecies. How fervently did we not repeat those words: “Send forth, Lord, the Lamb, the ruler of the earth” (Isaias xvi. 1) This Lamb was the long-expected Messiah, and we said to ourselves: “Oh ! what a Pasch will that not be, in which such a Lamb is to be victim! What a Feast, in which He is to be the food of the feasters!”
When the fulness of time came and God sent His Son upon our earth, this Word made Flesh, after thirty years of hidden life, manifested Himself to men. He came to the river Jordan where John was baptising. No sooner did the holy Baptist see Him than he said to his disciples: “Behold the Lamb of God! Behold him who takes away the sin of the world!” (John i. 29) By these words, the saintly Precursor proclaimed the Pasch, for it was virtually telling men that the earth then possessed the true Lamb, the Lamb of God, of whom it had been in expectation four thousand years. Yes, the Lamb — who was fairer than the one offered by Abel, richer in mystery than the one slain by Abraham on the Mount, and more spotless than the one the Israelites were commanded to sacrifice in Egypt — had come. He was the Lamb so earnestly prayed for by Isaias: the Lamb sent by God himself — in a word, the Lamb of God. A few years would pass, and then the immolation.
But three days ago, and we assisted at His sacrifice. We witnessed the meek patience with which He suffered His executioners to slay Him. We have been laved with His Precious Blood, and it has cleansed us from all our sins. The shedding of this redeeming Blood was needed for our Pasch. Unless we had been marked with it, we could not have escaped the sword of the destroying Angel. It has made us partake of the purity of the God who so generously shed it for us. Our neophytes have risen whiter than snow from the font in which that Blood was mingled. Poor sinners that had lost the innocence received in their Baptism, have regained their treasure, because the divine energy of that Blood has been applied to their souls. The whole assembly of the faithful is clad in the nuptial garment, rich and fair beyond measure, for it has been made white in the Blood of the Lamb (Apocalypse vii. 14). But why this festive garment? It is because we are invited to a great banquet: and here, again, we find our Lamb. He himself is the food of the happy guests, and the banquet is the Pasch. The great Apostle, Saint Andrew, when confessing the name of Christ before the pagan Proconsul Aegeas, spoke these sublime words: “I daily offer upon the altar the spotless Lamb, of whose Flesh the whole multitude of the Faithful eat: the Lamb, that is sacrificed, remains whole and living.”
Yesterday this banquet was celebrated throughout the entire universe: it is kept up during all these days, and by it we contract a close union with the Lamb who incorporates Himself with us by the divine food He gives us. Nor does the mystery of the Lamb end here. Isaias besought God to send the Lamb who was to be the Ruler of the earth. He comes, therefore, not only that He may be sacrificed, not only that He may feed us with His sacred flesh, but likewise that He may command the earth and be King. Here, again, is our Pasch. The Pasch is the announcement of the reign of the Lamb. The citizens of heaven thus proclaim it: “Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered!” (Apocalypse v. 5) But, if He be the Lion, how is He the Lamb? Let us be attentive to the mystery. Out of love for man who needed redemption and a heavenly food that would invigorate, Jesus deigned to be as a Lamb: but He had, moreover, to triumph over His own and our enemies. He had to reign, for all power was given to Him in Heaven and on Earth (Matthew xxviii. 18) In this His triumph and power, He is a Lion: nothing can resist Him. His victory is celebrated, this day, throughout the whole world. Listen to the great Deacon of Edessa, Saint Ephrem: “At the twelfth hour He was taken down from the Cross as a Lion that slept.” Yes, verily, our Lion slept, for His rest in the sepulchre “was more like sleep than death,” as Saint Leo remarks. Was not this the fulfilment of Jacob’s dying prophecy? This Patriarch, speaking of the Messiah that was to be born of his race, said: “Judah is a lion’s whelp. To the prey, my son, you are gone up! Resting you have couched as a Lion. Who will rouse him?” (Genesis xlix. 9) He has roused Himself, by His own power. He has risen: a Lamb for us, a Lion for His enemies, thus uniting, in His person, gentleness and power. This completes the mystery of our Pasch: a Lamb, triumphant, obeyed, adored. Let us payHhim the homage so justly due. Until we be permitted to join, in heaven, with the millions of Angels and the Four-and-twenty Elders, let us repeat, here on earth, the hymn they are forever singing: “The Lamb that was slain, is worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction” (Apocalypse v. 12).
Epistle – Acts x. 37‒43
In those days, Peter, standing in the midst of the people, said, “Men, brethren, you know the word which has been published through all Judea; for it began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached. Jesus of Nazareth: how God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all things that He did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem; Whom they killed, hanging Him upon a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but to witnesses preordained by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose again from the dead. And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was appointed by God to be the judge of the living and of the dead. To Him all the prophets give testimony, that through His Name all receive remissions of sins, who believe in Him.”
Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Gueranger:
Saint Peter spoke these words to Cornelius, the Centurion, and to the household and friends of this Gentile, who had called them together to receive the Apostle whom God had sent to him. He had come to prepare them for Baptism, and thus make them the first-fruits of the Gentile-world, for, up to this time, the Gospel had been preached only to the Jews. Let us take notice how it is Saint Peter, and not any other of the Apostles, who throws open to us Gentiles the door of the Church, which Christ had built upon him, as upon the impregnable Rock... Let us observe... the method used by the Apostle in the conversion of Cornelius and the other Gentiles. He begins by speaking to them concerning Jesus. He tells them of the miracles he wrought. Then, having related how He died the ignominious death of the Cross, he insists on the fact of the Resurrection as the sure guarantee of His being truly God. He then instructs them on the mission of the Apostles, whose testimony must be received — testimony which carries persuasion with it, seeing it was most disinterested, and availed them nothing save persecution. He, therefore, who believes in the Son of God made Flesh, who went about doing good, working all kinds of miracles, who died on the Cross, rose again from the dead, and entrusted to certain men chosen by Himself the mission of continuing on earth he ministry He had begun — he who confesses all this is worthy to receive, by holy Baptism, the remission of his sins. Such is the happy lot of Cornelius and his companions.
Gospel – Luke xxiv. 13‒35
At that time, two of the disciples of Jesus went that same day to a town which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus Himself also drawing near, went with them. But their eyes were held that they should not know Him. And He said to them, “What are these discourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are sad?” And one of them, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to Him, “Are you only a stranger in Jerusalem, and have not known the things that have happened there these days?” To whom He said, “What things?” And they said “concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people. And how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death and crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel. And now besides all this today is the third day since these things were done. Yes, certain women also of our company frightened us, who before it was light were at the sepulchre; and not finding His body, came saying that they had also seen a vision of Angels who say that He is alive. And some of our people went to the sepulchre, and found it so as the women had said, but Him they found not.”
Then He said to them, “O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all the things which the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things that were concerning Himself. And they drew near the town where they they were going, and He made as though he would go further. But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is near evening, and the day is now far spent.” And He went in with them. And it came to pass, while He was at table with them, He took bread, and blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they knew Him. And He vanished out of their sight; And they said one to another, “Was not our heart burning within us, while He talked on the way and opened to us the scriptures?” And rising up the same hour, they went back to Jerusalem and found the eleven gathered together, and those that were with them saying, “The Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.” And they told what happened on the way and how they knew Him in the breaking of bread.
Praise be to you, O Christ.
