Preparing for Pentecost: Easter Thursday

The Octave of Easter is a wonderful time to read the Fathers of the Church. Listen to them as they speak to the Church from across the continuum of history.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - Easter is more than a day. It is a season of Resurrection as the Church prepares for the Feast of Pentecost, celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Christian Church.

This is a wonderful time to read the Fathers of the Faith as they encourage, challenge, and call us to a deeper life in Christ. Listen to them as they speak to the Church from across the continuum of history.

During the Season of Easter, Catholic Online will be publishing a daily excerpt of the Fathers taken from the Office of Readings along with questions for reflection. We want to help our online community enter fully into the life and faith that is ours in the Church.

Easter Thursday

Scripture: I Peter 3:1 - 17

Reading: From the Jerusalem Catecheses

The Jerusalem Catecheses were written by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, who was born during the time of Constantine in 313 A.D. He was appointed Bishop of Jerusalem in 349. He was banished three times for preaching the fullness of Christ's divinity during a time when some bishops and priests held to the Arian heresy.

The Catecheses were 24 lectures St. Cyril used to instruct new Christians prior to their baptism and initiation into the Church at Easter. He specifically emphasizes the value and efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism. He also exhorts the candidates concerning the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Baptism is a symbol of Christ's passion

"You were led down to the font of holy baptism just as Christ was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb which is before your eyes. Each of you was asked, "Do you believe in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?" You made the profession of faith that brings salvation, you were plunged into the water, and three times you rose again. This symbolized the three days Christ spent in the tomb.

As our Savior spent three days and three nights in the depths of the earth, so your first rising from the water represented the first day and your first immersion represented the first night. At night a man cannot see, but in the day he walks in the light. So when you were immersed in the water it was like night for you and you could not see, but when you rose again it was like coming into broad daylight. In the same instant you died and were born again; the saving water was both your tomb and your mother.

Solomon's phrase in another context is very apposite here. He spoke of a time to give birth, and a time to die. For you, however, it was the reverse: a time to die, and a time to be born, although in fact both events took place at the same time and your birth was simultaneous with your death.

This is something amazing and unheard of! It was not we who actually died, were buried and rose again. We only did these things symbolically, but we have been saved in actual fact. It is Christ who was crucified, who was buried and who rose again, and all this has been attributed to us. We share in his sufferings symbolically and gain salvation in reality.

What boundless love for men! Christ's undefiled hands were pierced by the nails; he suffered the pain. I experience no pain, no anguish, yet by the share that I have in his sufferings he freely grants me salvation.

Let no one imagine that baptism consists only in the forgiveness of sins and in the grace of adoption. Our baptism is not like the baptism of John, which conferred only the forgiveness of sins. We know perfectly well that baptism, besides washing away our sins and bringing us the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of the sufferings of Christ.

This is why Paul exclaims: Do you not know that when we were baptized into Christ Jesus we were, by that very action, sharing in his death? By baptism we went with him into the tomb."

Reflection:

1) Baptism reverses the normal processes of life. We die in order to be born, leaving our old life behind and coming into a new life in Jesus Christ.

Reflect on what parts of our life should be left behind in the waters of baptism.

Are there things you have gone back and retrieved that need to cast off through the Sacrament of Confession?

2) St. Cyril reminds us that our baptism is not the same as the one described in the Scriptures performed by John the Baptist. Before Christ's Passion, Death, and Resurrection, John called upon the Jews within in the sound of his voice to be baptized as a sign of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.This was normally a rite reserved for Gentiles who were converting to Judaism.

The call for baptism by St. Peter in the Book of Acts set the foundation for our Sacrament.

Are there any similarities in our Sacrament of Baptism with John's baptism?

How is the Sacrament of Baptism different and more sufficient than John's baptism?

Prayer:

Almighty and most merciful God, help us to always remember the gift of our baptism and the grace that was given as we passed through the waters from death to life. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit are worshipped and magnified now and forever. Amen.

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