EASTER - THE FEAST OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD

"Resurexit Sicut Dixit" By Rene De Cramer

The Feast of the Resurrection of the Lord.

The most important day on the Catholic Calendar, marking the beginning of the seven weeks of Eastertide, lasting from today until Pentecost.

Today's feast marks the entire purpose for weekly Sunday worship. Because Christ was raised from the dead on the first day of the week, March 27th, to be exact, The Catholic Church has always celebrated the liturgy of the Eucharist, which makes up the second half of the Mass, on Sunday. In the beginning, the Apostles, the first 12 bishops of the Church, and those whom they appointed to assist them in the Churches they founded, the priests, would celebrate the Liturgy of the Eucharist on Sunday, the first day of the week. The Liturgy of the Word, which today makes up the first half of the Mass, was celebrated at Synagogue on Saturday.

Eventually, we were kicked out of the Synagogue and so the Liturgy of the Word was combined with Sunday's Liturgy of the Eucharist and the two liturgies were celebrated together on Sunday as the Mass from then on. That is why the first half of the Catholic Mass is really more or less the same thing as what you would see at a Jewish Synagogue, outside of the fact that we read from the New Testament scriptures. (The Gospels were not even written until decades after the foundation of the Church.)

Today, the priests, who's charism to consecrate bread and wine and transform them into the body and blood of Jesus Christ on the altar is handed on to them by the Sacramental laying on of hands by the bishops, who succeed the Apostles, the first bishops, still carry on these practices in unbroken continuity since the foundation of the Catholic Church.

Last night, at Vigil Masses throughout the world, a Liturgy that lasts for three or four hours or more, we moved from the darkness of Holy Saturday, from the darkness of the tomb and the underworld, to the sunrise of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of God who became one of us so as to live and die and live again so that each of us who lives and dies in Him will also live again for all time.

Last Night's Easter Vigil at Saint Peter's Basilica
celebrated by Pope Francis,
Bishop of Rome,
265th successor of Saint Peter,
who was first of the Popes. 

In the middle of that Liturgy, time stops for my favorite moments in the entire year. The Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy communion of converts who are entering the Church. A Tradition going back to Christ's founding of the Church that has been preserved in the succession of bishops going back to the Apostles.

The Paschal Candle which was lit from the Holy Fire, which was blessed at the beginning of the liturgy, was then used to bless the Holy Water that would then be used to Baptize the Elect, which is what we call those who seek all three Sacraments of Initiation in the Catholic Church. The Church recognizes any Baptism that is done in the Trinitarian form, so there is usually a large number of converts from Protestantism who are not Baptized at the Vigil, but only need to be Confirmed, a Sacrament referenced in Acts 8:14-17, and to recieve their First Holy Communion.

Thousands upon thousands of converts joined the perpetual revolution last night.

Resurrexit Sicut Dixit!

We are the Easter People!
Kill us and we live!

The schola of the Abbey of Gethsemani sings the Easter chant Resurrexi - "I have risen."
A film by Brother Lawrence Morey at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani,
the oldest operating Catholic monastery in America,
founded by the 1,000 year old Cistercian Order,
a reform of the 1,500 year old Benedictine Order.