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 of her Jesus' rest 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, and the Light of the World, 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

1 Heb. i. 3.

2 St. John, viii. 12.

Rupert, "leave the Jews to enjoy the ancient Sab"bath, 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 recog"nise this world's Creator as their King, because he "said Blessed are the Poor! and, Wo 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."1

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 St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Isidore, Amalarius, Rabanus Maurus, and from all the ancient interpreters of the mysteries of the holy Liturgy. "If we multiply seven by seven," says St. Hilary, we shall 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 in"stitution 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

1 De Divinis Officiis, lib. vii. cap. xix.

"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."1

Each

Thus, then, the whole Season of Easter is marked with the mystery expressed by each Sunday of the Year. 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. 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, whereon 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. Pen

1 Prologus in Psalmos.

tecost, which gives us the Holy Spirit, the consuming Fire-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 Saint's Feasts, which were interrupted during Holy Week, are likewise excluded from the first eight days of Eastertide; but these ended, we shall 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.

1 Heb. xii. 29.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

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 wherein 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 12th 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