“This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad”

Today is the Sunday that closes the Octave of Easter, the so-called “Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy),” in albis because it is the day on which the catechumens who had received Baptism on Easter night and had put on the white garment (that is, the “alba”), would return to church with the community, taking part for the first time in the complete celebration of the Eucharist with their white garment, and once the celebration was over they would lay it aside. For the first time in the complete celebration because, during the period of the catechumenate, they could take part only in the first part of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Word. By listening to the word of God, they heard the proclamation of salvation that instructed them in the faith. But the second part of the Mass, the Eucharistic table, is reserved to the “initiated,” to those who have already passed through the washing of regeneration of Baptism and now take part in the fullness of “communion” with the Christian community.

Well, this is one of the first thoughts I touched upon in my homily this morning. Since the homily today was a bit long and a bit repetitive, somewhat prolix, and someone was signaling to me that perhaps I was going on too long, after Mass a friend from the families group said to me, “why don’t you write the homily on Twitter or on the blog, so we can look at it calmly and perhaps follow it a little better”; well, I took him at his word and now I am jotting down a few thoughts. There are many very beautiful and interesting elements in this period of the year; I can touch upon only a few aspects… Here they are in writing, though at your own risk, because if I am sometimes prolix when I speak, I will be even more so when I write, so take a good breath… Although I think I will break the reflection into several articles so as not to make it too heavy… So here is the “first installment.”

The Octave of Easter, one single great day
We were saying that this day closes the Octave of Easter. For eight days we have been solemnly celebrating Easter almost as though it were one single great day. The liturgy, in its ritual nature, transcends time, and projects us into God’s time, into eternity. Therefore time is sometimes experienced in a different way. If in our ordinary human life our day is always and only made up of 24 hours, in the liturgy, on the other hand, we sometimes take eight days as though they were a single day. So much so that in the Eucharistic Prayer, at the moment when mention is made of Easter, in the Easter Vigil Mass we say “on this night on which the Lord Jesus rose in his true body”, whereas in the Mass on Easter Sunday and for all the following eight days up to the Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy) we say “on this day on which the Lord Jesus rose in his true body”. Then from the Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy) until Pentecost we say “in this time in which the Lord Jesus rose in his true body”.

Jesus is the Lord of time and history, and liturgical season transcends physical time. Another indication is given to us by today’s liturgy: in the Responsorial Psalm we read “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad” (Sal 118). What is this “day the Lord has made”? Did he not create all days? Why speak of one particular day that was created by him? We Christians gather on Sunday to remember the Resurrection of Jesus, which took place more or less at the dawn of the “day after the Sabbath.” I say more or less, because no one was present at the tomb at the moment of Jesus’ Resurrection except the guards placed there by the chief priests of the Jews, who were afraid that Jesus’ disciples would make Jesus’ body disappear and then pass off a Resurrection from the dead. Since Jesus had mentioned a few times that he would have to rise on the third day, the chief priests thought that Jesus’ disciples might devise something of the sort, and to avoid this, to avoid this creating further “publicity” for Jesus’ disciples, they placed guards at the tomb. But what happens? The women go early in the morning to embalm Jesus’ body, something that had not yet been done because it was not permitted to do any work on the Sabbath day (and Friday evening, from sunset, was already considered the Sabbath for the Jews; we too have preserved this custom in our Christian liturgy: our feasts begin on the preceding evening starting at sunset; for this reason we celebrate Mass also on Saturday evening, which is not “pre-festive” as it is sometimes called, but is “festive,” because it is already Sunday).
(I have to put a period, otherwise the sentence becomes too long, even though I have not concluded the thought 🙂 )
I resume: the women went early in the morning on the “day after the Sabbath, the first day of the week” to embalm Jesus’ body. For the Jews the festive day was the Sabbath. If the year is established on the basis of the earth’s rotation around the sun, the month is established on the basis of the lunar phases, the day is established on the basis of the earth’s rotation on its own axis, the week, on the other hand, has no specific reference in nature. Where then does the week come from? Since ancient times we have used to divide our time into “weeks,” that is, groups of seven days. In ancient cultures the number seven had always been considered a sacred number. For the Jews the week was linked to the account of the creation of the world: “in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested.” While we may calmly grant that they were not in fact seven days (also because days did not exist before the creation / formation of the earth and of the planets around the sun), we also realize that the mere fact of dividing our time into weeks had for the Jews an almost sacred value. “On the seventh day he rested”: the seventh day acquires, more than the others, a sacred value, a day dedicated to God alone, on which we too rest from our work as God did. The seventh day is the “Sabbath,” which corresponds to our Saturday, which in Italian is “Sabato” and is still close to the word “Sabbath”. In English instead it refers to “the day of Saturn”.

Similarly the other days of the week in Italian are named after planets and therefore inspired by Greek mythology. Interestingly, even when English does not use the Latin planetary names, it still follows the exact same mythological pattern through its Germanic and Norse roots. Just as Thursday is named after Thor (the Norse equivalent of Jupiter), Tuesday is named after Tiw or Tyr, the Germanic god of war who corresponds to Mars. Wednesday comes from Woden (better known as Odin), whom early Germanic peoples associated with the Roman god Mercury, while Friday is dedicated to Frigg or Freya, the goddess of love and beauty who parallels Venus. In this way, both Italian and English preserve a calendar shaped by ancient pagan deities, making the survival of the Jewish “Sabbath” in the Italian “sabato” and the Christian “Lord’s Day” in “Domenica” stand out even more clearly. Unfortunately these are not preserved in the English “Saturday” or “Sunday” (day of the Sun).

In the commandments written by the finger of God on Sinai, we find one that specifically concerns the observance of the Sabbath. See Exodus 31:12-17; see the third commandment of the Decalogue in Exodus 20:8.

The transfer of the sacred day
If it was God’s “expressed will” to observe the seventh day as a religious day, written even in the Ten Commandments that hold for all times, then for what reason do we Christians have Sunday as the “sacred day”? Why did we not keep Saturday? The Gospel tells us that Jesus rose “the day after the Sabbath, the first day of the week.” And it is to remember this event that it took the name “Sunday,” that is, “Lord’s Day,” “dies dominicus,” even though in Anglo-Saxon culture the name linked to Greek mythology has remained, namely “Sunday,” the day of the Sun.
We can still ask ourselves: however important the remembrance of the Resurrection of Jesus may be for Christians, could it justify a transfer of the “sacred day” from Saturday, indicated in God’s commandment, to Sunday? This transfer of the sacred day, however, took place not on the basis of an arbitrary choice of the first Christian communities, but precisely by considering that in the Gospel accounts, after his Resurrection, Jesus appears to his disciples always on the “day after the Sabbath, the first day of the week,” and breaks bread with them as he had done at the Last Supper. Therefore the apostles and the first Christian communities understood it as Jesus’ (implicit?) will that Sunday be observed in his memory.

Go to the next installment…