Dom Gueranger suggests that we can learn an important lesson from this liturgical organization. Additionally, there were readings, antiphons, and prayers about baptism and the Resurrection. But the Church still maintained the rich baptismal imagery of the Easter Octave, which included processions to the baptismal font and to the depiction of an empty tomb set up in the church building. Over the centuries adult baptism became less common. The Church, through her liturgy, was continuing to remind them-and us!-of the importance of remembering their baptism.
Dom Gueranger points out that, early on, Easter Monday was fixed as the anniversary of baptism for the previous year’s neophytes. Throughout this whole week, they continued to wear their white baptismal robes all day and every day to celebrate their having been “washed white in the blood of the lamb.” The early Latin Christians, therefore, referred to Easter Week as hebdomada alba (“white week”) from these white garments.īut the octave wasn’t just about the neophytes. During that time they were attending daily Mass and the Divine Office, making pilgrimages to the font of their baptism, and receiving catechesis on the connection of their baptism with the Resurrection of Christ. These neophytes, from the Greek for “newly planted,” remained in a kind of joyful retreat for all the seven days following the baptism. The Easter Octave has its origins in celebrating the new resurrection-life of those who were baptized at the Easter Vigil. Baptism was our admission ticket for this resurrection now we’re in the eight-day-long party. The Church’s liturgy wants us to celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection in such a festive manner because it has created the possibility for our own resurrection. So for eight whole days, it is still actually Easter Day. The Resurrection is so important that one day isn’t enough to celebrate it. By baptizing people at the Easter Vigil, the Church is reminding us that, because of our own baptism, we participate in the same divine life that raised Jesus from the dead and that spiritually restores us after the death of sin.įor the entire week after Easter Sunday, the Church celebrates what is called an octave. At baptism he gives us our initial influx of it. How’s that possible? I’ve heard this new dimension called “resurrection-life.” Jesus founded the Church and instituted the sacraments for the purpose of pouring that same resurrection-life into us. This new dimension “affects all of us and opens up for us a new space of life, a new space of being in union with God.” That means we’re all capable of undergoing this evolutionary leap. Pope Benedict XVI describes the Resurrection of Jesus as an “evolutionary leap” in which a new dimension of human existence emerges.
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