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The Easter Season: Celebrating the Paschal Mystery There Are Eight Sundays in the Easter Season

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The Easter Season: Celebrating the Paschal Mystery There Are Eight Sundays in the Easter Season The Easter Season begins at the Easter Vigil and ends fifty days later on the feast of Pentecost. The whole of Eastertide was originally called Pentecost and it was considered to be one big festival. There are three major celebrations within the fifty days: the Easter Vigil (the resurrection), Ascension (Jesus is taken into heaven) and Pentecost (sending of the Holy Spirit). The liturgical colour for the season is white, with the exception of Pentecost, when red vestments are worn. The Easter Season: celebrating the paschal mystery There are eight Sundays in the Easter Season. The first is Easter Sunday, the seventh is the feast of the Ascension (in Australia) and the eighth is Pentecost. The whole of the Easter Season is a celebration of the paschal mystery.1 The paschal mystery is so named because the earliest Christians understood Jesus’ death and resurrection in terms of a new Passover. The word ‘paschal’ comes from the Greek “pascha,” which is derived from the Hebrew and Aramaic words referring to the annual commemoration of the original Passover.2 The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar says: ‘Christ redeemed us all and gave perfect glory to God principally through his paschal mystery: dying he destroyed our death and rising he restored our life.’3 Identifying the paschal mystery only with the death and resurrection of Jesus is a convenient compromise: all aspects of Jesus’ life, including his birth, ministry, death and resurrection are paschal, since they involved sacrifice. Renowned scholar Thomas Talley writes that ‘Pascha itself is celebration of Christ’s victorious passion and death, his resurrection and ascension, and the sending of the Spirit upon the Church.’4 The gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is part of the paschal mystery. It is the Spirit – at work in us through the sacraments, particularly Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist – who empowers Christians to live out the paschal mystery in their everyday lives. When Talley describes the Easter Season, he includes the Ascension and Pentecost as integral to its paschal nature: In our own day, renewed appreciation of the Pascha as central to the liturgical year . has carried with it . a renewed emphasis on the integrity of this ‘Great Sunday’ of paschal joy, the seventh part of the year, the time of harvest initiated, as Paul said, when Christ our Paschal Lamb was sacrificed for us, and brought to consummation when he, the first fruits 1 For a more detailed discussion of the paschal mystery see Preparing for Easter: the Easter Triduum. 2 Thomas M. Finn, “The Pasch, Paschal Controversy,” in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, eds., Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland Publishing, 1997), 2:876-877. 3 General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, http://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Resources/GIRM/Documents/GNLY.pdf, (accessed April 11, 2011),18. 4 Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo, 1986), 57. of the resurrection, ascending to the Father, led captivity captive, and gave to us the gift of life, the Holy Spirit of God.5 Mystagogy In the early Church, the eight days (the octave) after Easter Sunday was a time for intensive religious education for those who were baptised at the Easter Vigil. The period of post-baptismal catechesis was called Mystagogy. This tradition, along with many aspects of the ancient adult initiation process, was revived after Vatican II. 6 In the fourth century, St Augustine (A.D. 391-430), who was bishop of Hippo Regius (in modern Algeria), taught the newly baptised about Eucharist: I promised you, who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the Sacrament of the Lord's Table, which you now look upon and of which you last night were made participants. That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ. Through that bread and wine the Lord Christ willed to commend His Body and Blood, which He poured out for us unto the forgiveness of sins. If you receive worthily, you are what you have received.7 We still have records of what Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 314-387) taught the newly baptised of his day. He told them that through baptism, their lives were transformed to become like Christ: ‘(this baptism of ours) which brings purification from sins and also mediates the gift of the Holy Spirit, is also a replica of the passion of Christ.’ 8 Cyril reminded them of what Paul wrote to the Romans: ‘Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life’ (Rom 6:3-4, NRSV). This paschal imagery was reinforced in the baptismal liturgy. Many ancient baptismal fonts were cross-shaped, like the one pictured here at the Basilica of St John in Ephesus (modern Turkey).9 Candidates for baptism walked down into the font at one end, were fully immersed in water three times, anointed with oil,10 then they walked out of the font at the other end. Having ritually died with Christ by walking down into the water, they emerged from the water into new life with the risen Christ.11 Then the newly baptised were confirmed and received their first communion. In those days, as today, Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist were understood to be parts of the one, unified experience of initiation, in which the paschal mystery was expressed and experienced. This is why the sacraments of initiation are central to the Easter Season. 5 Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical, 69-70. 6 The Rite of Initiation of Adults (or RCIA) – for more information see The Liturgical Commission website. 7 St Augustine, “Sermons,”[272], Columbia University, accessed April 13, 2011, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/a/eucharist-q.html 8 Deiss, Springtime of the Liturgy, 280-281; 9 H. Richard Rutherford, “What can We Learn from ancient Baptismal fonts for Today’s Designs?” Envisionchurch, http://www1.georgetown.edu/centers/liturgy/envisionchurch/44007.html (accessed April 11, 2011). 10 This was the oil of Thanksgiving. 11 Deiss, Springtime of the Liturgy, 140-145. The Feast of the Ascension The fortieth day after Easter Sunday, which is a Thursday, is the feast of the Ascension. In Australia, however, the feast is celebrated on the following Sunday, that is the seventh Sunday of the Easter Season. Therese D’Arcy describes the feast this way: ‘The Ascension is not about Jesus going up into outer space.’ The feast is not so much an event as it is ‘a celebration of the passing of the baton from Jesus to us. The risen lord is now present in his people, and each of today’s readings stresses the mission of the Church to carry on the work of Jesus.’12 First Reading: Acts 1:1-11 – Jesus is taken into heaven. Second Reading: (Year A) Ephesians 1:17-23; (Year B) Ephesians 4:1-13; (Year C) Hebrews 9:24-28, 10:19-23 – Jesus is in heaven and we must live our vocation. Gospel: (Year A) Matthew 28:16-20; (Year B) Mark 16:15-20; (Year C) Luke 24:46-53 – Jesus commissions the eleven disciples to go out and spread the Good News. It is obvious from the account in Acts, that the Ascension is not an isolated feast, but part of the larger narrative of the Easter Season which concludes at Pentecost: After his suffering [Jesus] presented himself alive to them . over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God . ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’ . you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. (Acts 1:3-5; 8-9) Jesus’ ascension is also a sign of hope for us – as the Opening Prayer of the liturgy says: God our Father, make us joyful in the ascension of your Son Jesus Christ. May we follow him into the new creation, for his ascension is our glory and our hope. In the meantime, we are called to become Christ for others – ‘witnesses’ – in our everyday lives. 12 Barry Copley and Therese D’Arcy, Break Open the Word (Brisbane: The Liturgical Commission, 2011), 92. The Feast of Pentecost The fiftieth day after Easter Sunday is called Pentecost Sunday. ‘Pentecost’ is derived from a Greek word, meaning ‘the fiftieth’ day. Both Jews and Christians celebrate this feast. For Jews, Pentecost refers to the fiftieth day after Passover. They call this the Festival of Weeks (or Shavu'ot). Originally it was a thanksgiving for the wheat harvest and the first fruits of the harvest were taken to the Temple. The feast also celebrates the renewal of the covenants between God and the chosen people received through Noah (Gen 8:20ff), Abraham (Gen 22:15ff) and Moses (Exod 19:1ff). The giving of the law (or Torah) to Moses on Mount Sinai is the particular focus of the feast.
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