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The Easter Cycle
She cannot make exceptions with regard to His laws and commandments. For if she did,
she would cease to be the Church of Christ. We who have accepted baptism from her are
subject to her rules and commandments as well as to those of Christ. We cannot appeal
from the Church to Christ. We cannot withdraw from her authority or reject her teaching
without withdrawing from Christ. “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth
you, despiseth Me.” Christ and His Church are one. I am loyal to Christ in the measure that
I am loyal to His Church. I can depend on His guidance and presence in so far as I submit
to the Church.
“Going, teach ye all nations,” the Communion tells us. We who have received the body
of Christ are called upon to be apostles and missionaries; we are to be apostles of prayer,
and missionaries through our works of expiation, our holy life, and our good example. We
receive the grace to carry out our mission in Holy Communion, when He comes to us with
the fullness of His power and fills us with His life. His power must go out from us to sanctify
and enlighten others as often as we go to Holy Communion.
Prayer
Almighty and eternal God, who in the covenant of man’s atonement hast bestowed the paschal
sacrament, grant that what we outwardly celebrate we may imitate effectually. Through Christ
our Lord. Amen.
Saturday
In ancient times the neophytes gathered on this day in the Lateran Basilica, the church in which
they were baptized on Holy Saturday. In this same church they laid aside the white baptismal
robes, which were then put away in the treasury of the church to be preserved as a pledge of
the loyalty of those who had worn them, and to be produced as evidence against those who
proved unfaithful to their baptismal promises. The baptismal garment symbolized the putting
off of the old man and the putting on of the new.
“Laying away all malice and all guile, and dissimulations and envies, and all detractions”
(Epistle). Thus also did the Lord at His resurrection leave behind Him the garments in
which He had been wrapped. From the linens left behind, the apostles Peter and John
recognized the place where He had lain, when they visited the tomb on Easter morning.
“And they both ran together, and that other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the
sepulcher. And when he stooped down, and saw the linen cloths lying, but yet he went
not in. Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and went into the sepulcher and saw
the linen cloths lying, and the napkins that had been about His head, not lying with the
linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up into one place. Then that other disciple also went in,
who came first to the sepulcher, and he saw and believed” (Gospel). The liturgy wishes to
tell us that we Christians must lay aside all malice and guile and evil detraction. When we
have done this, the Church will acknowledge that we have laid aside the old man in the
waters of baptism and have risen with Christ. The liturgy wishes us to be true Christians.
She wishes us to prove our Christianity by deeds, “laying away all malice and all guile,
and dissimulations and envies, and all detractions.”
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