The Octave of Easter is the eight-day period (octave) in Eastertide that starts on Easter and concludes with the following Sunday. The Octave Day of Easter refers only to that day. Another name is White Sunday. It is also called Low Sunday, particularly in the Anglican Communion. It may be called Thomas Sunday, especially among Eastern Christians. On 30 April 2000, it was also designated as Divine Mercy Sunday (or the Feast of Mercy) by Pope John Paul II, who fulfilled the wish which Jesus revealed to saint Faustina Kowalska, saying that any Catholic who goes to Confession – the Sacrament of Penance – then receives the Holy Eucharist on this day will be liberated from any punishment after death.
Monday
in the Octave of Easter
T.
Jefferson-
Isaiah, Chapter 44, verse 8
Do not fear
or be troubled. Did I not announce it to you long ago? I declared it, and you
are my witnesses. Is there any God but me? There is no other Rock, I know of
none!
Our God knows we are fearful and
troubled and that we seek refuge in other god’s such as sex, drugs and rock and
roll. Yet, still he is patient and tells us plainly there is no other. He is
that is. There is no other rock (refuge) from the terrors that bind us.
The Kingdom of Darkness
·
This
kingdom offers a false peace and happiness in sin. Man is capable, especially
in heaven, but even here on earth, of experiencing a deep joy and a deep peace
given by God. Many of us have experienced this. The false joy offered, for
example, in the sin of drunkenness or drug abuse. This false joy is also offered
in the sins of sex before marriage, adultery after marriage, or homosexuality.
·
When
people are deeply involved in these sins, or in murder, violent anger or in
deep hatred, jealousy and unforgiveness, they are really living in the kingdom
of darkness and can open themselves up to the possibility of direct attacks
from the evil spirits.
·
The
danger today is that sin has become very "respectable" in our
society. Sex before marriage, adultery, heavy social drinking, abortion, and
homosexuality have all attained a certain "respectability." They do
not seem so bad. That is because they are not bad in the kingdom of darkness.
·
Our
homes should be sacred, peaceful places in which to live. Our homes need to be
clean. We should not let them become dirty or allow disorder by having junk and
filth accumulate in our drawers and closets. The power of evil abhors
cleanliness.
·
Remove
anything in your home that has had something to do with witchcraft, a
spiritualist, a curandero, a medium, an oriental religion or cult or that has
been used in a superstitious way. Destroy it or see to it that it is destroyed.
Do not keep jewelry that is symbolic of witchcraft or is a sign of the Zodiac.
Remove and burn all pornographic pictures and magazines--even those that have
been put away in a drawer, closet or trunk. Get rid of all religious literature
that does not agree with the basic truth of our faith that Jesus Christ is
divine. He is the Son of God, our only Savior who brings us to the Father.
Remove and destroy literature from the Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Christian
Science, Unity, Science of Mind, Scientology, Hare Krishna, Yoga, Transcendental
Meditation, Divine Light Mission, Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon, the
Children of God and the Way International. None of this or similar literature
should be around our homes. Do not allow the influence of evil to come into
your home through television. Carefully monitor the programs that are seen. The
values taught by television advertising are not the values preached by Our Lord
Jesus Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapters 5, 6 and 7.
571 The Paschal
mystery of Christ's cross and Resurrection stands at the center of the Good
News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the
world. God's saving plan was accomplished "once for all" by the
redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ.
1171 In the liturgical year the various aspects of the one
Paschal mystery unfold. This is also the case with the cycle of feasts surrounding
the mystery of the incarnation (Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany). They
commemorate the beginning of our salvation and communicate to us the first
fruits of the Paschal mystery of Christ.
It is
the same Paschal Mystery that we celebrate every Sunday at every Mass. This
mystery should evoke the ancient Passover of the Jews when the firstborn
children of Israel were spared, and they were liberated from slavery. Their
delivery began in each household with the sacrifice of the lamb and the
smearing of the lamb’s blood on the doorposts which delivered the Jews out of
vice into virtue and the worship of God in sincerity and truth. In the Last
Supper Christ became the lamb that transformed his execution into a once for
all sacrifice. During Lent we mirror the Jews 40 years of purification when God
purged them of the residual effects of generations of interaction with Egyptian
Idolatry. Christ in His own life fasted for 40 days in the wilderness as a
model, like His baptism for His disciples to imitate. So, every year, we
prepare like Him for our Easter where we will offer our sacrifice, small as it
may be to Him. Lent is the season of fasting that begins today and ends on Holy
Saturday (except for Sundays; ancient Fathers forbade fasting on Sundays). This
is our tithe or a tenth part of our year for the Lord. We fast from “good”
things; for in our fast we give them to God, so that we learn not to put
anything before Him. We pray that by this movement of purification we
may be illuminated and finally come to union with Him. In a sense
during Lent we “pass over” from sin through penance to communion.
IN the Introit of the Mass
of this day the Church brings before our eyes the entrance of the Israelites
into the promised land, which is a type of the kingdom of heaven, under Josue,
who is a type of Christ. The Lord hath brought you into a land flowing with
milk and honey, alleluia: and that the law of the Lord may be ever in your
mouth, alleluia, alleluia. Give glory to the Lord and call upon His name,
declare His deeds among the gentiles.
Prayer. O God, Who hast bestowed remedies
on the world in the paschal solemnities, grant to Thy people heavenly gifts, we
beseech Thee, that they may both deserve to obtain perfect liberty, and arrive
at life everlasting.
EPISTLE. Acts x. 37-43.
In those days: Peter standing
in the midst of the people, said: Men, brethren, you know the word which hath
been published through all Judea: for it began from Galilee, after the baptism
which John preached, Jesus of Nazareth: how God anointed Him with the Holy
Ghost, and with power, Who went about doing good, and healing all that were
oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all things
that He did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, Whom they killed, hanging
Him upon a tree. Him God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made
manifest, not to all the people, but to witnesses preordained by God, even to
us, who did eat and drink with Him after He arose again from the dead: and He
commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He Who was
appointed by God to be judge of the living and of the dead. To Him all the
prophets give testimony, that by His name all receive remission of sins, who
believe in Him.
Explanation. Through Jesus sent from God, and through Him alone, forgiveness of
sins and salvation are promised to all who truly and firmly believe in Him and
show their belief by deeds. Have such a lively faith, and thou shalt receive
forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.
GOSPEL. Luke xxiv. 13-35.
At that time: two of the disciples of Jesus went
the same day to a town, which was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus.
And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to
pass, that while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus Himself also
drawing near went with them. But their eyes were held that they should not know
Him. And He said to them: What are these discourses that you hold one with
another as you walk, and are sad?
And the one of them, whose name was Cleophas,
answering, said to Him: Art Thou only a stranger in Jerusalem and hast not
known the things that have been done there in these days? To whom He said: What
things?
And they said: Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, Who
was a prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people, and how
our chief priests and princes delivered Him to be condemned to death and
crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He that should have redeemed Israel:
and now besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done.
Yea, and certain women also of our company, affrighted us, who before it was
light were at the sepulcher. And not finding His body, came, saying that they had
also seen a vision of angels, who say that He is alive. And some of our people
went to the sepulcher: and found it so as the women had said, but Him they
found not. Then He said to them: O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all
things which the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these
things, and so to enter into His glory?
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He
expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things that were concerning Him.
And they drew nigh to the town whither they were going, and He made as though
He would go farther. But they constrained Him, saying: Stay with us, because it
is towards evening, and the day is now far spent. And He went in with them. And
it came to pass, whilst He was at table with them, He took bread, and blessed,
and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him: and
He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to the other: Was not our
heart burning within us, whilst He spoke in the way, and opened to us the
Scriptures?
And rising up the same hour they went back to
Jerusalem: and they found the eleven gathered together, and those that were
with them, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And
they told what things were done in the way: and how they knew Him in the
breaking of bread.
Why
did Jesus appear as a stranger to the two disciples? He appeared to them as a stranger, says St. Gregory, because He meant
to deal with them according to their dispositions, and according to the
firmness of their faith. They seemed not to have believed in Him as the Son of
God, but to have expected a hero or prince who should deliver them from their
subjection to the Romans. Thus, Christ was, indeed, yet a stranger in their
hearts, and chose to appear to them as such, to free those who loved Him from
their false notions, to convince them of the necessity of His passion, and to
reveal Himself to them, as soon as their understandings should be enlightened,
and their hearts filled with desire. Thus, God orders the disposal of His
graces according to our dispositions; according to our faith and trust;
according to our love and fidelity.
Easter Monday[4] was reserved as a
special day for rest and relaxation. Its most distinctive feature is the Emmaus walk, a leisurely
constitution inspired by the Gospel of the day (Luke 24.13-35). This can take
the form of a stroll through field or forest or, as in French Canada, a visit
to one's grandparents.
·
Games
of mischief dating to pre-Christian times also take place on Easter
Monday and Tuesday. Chief among them are drenching customs,
where boys surprise girls with buckets of water, and vice versa, or switching
customs, where switches are gently used on each other.
Thomas Jefferson (d. 1826) was
– besides being a founding father of the United States and president – one of
the most learned figures of his age. His education, through Episcopalian and
Huguenot schoolmasters and then at William and Mary included a comprehensive
classical approach in the Enlightenment tradition and fostered in him an
appreciation for mathematics, philosophy, architecture, botany, science, music,
and law. Philosophically, he was a dedicated Deist, meaning that he rejected
the need for revelation and repudiated all forms of established or
institutional religion beyond the obvious limits of reason. As such, he
declared himself a Christian – chafing against charges that he was an atheist
or infidel – but he had little patience with dogmas, finding especially
unacceptable the teachings of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, he did not
oppose organized religion, insisting that all religions be treated with
toleration within the pluralistic society established by the Constitution. The
best source for appreciating Jefferson’s self-identification with Christianity
(again from the standpoint of the Deists) was his work The Life and Morals of
Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin,
French, and English, compiled a few years before his death. Called also the
Jefferson Bible, it contains no personal writings by Jefferson, save for the
Table of Contents. Rather, it is a collection of nearly 1,000 verses from the
Gospels (Matthew and Luke chiefly), offering Jesus’ comprehensive moral
philosophy, as Jefferson saw it. He thus omitted all references to the divinity
of Jesus, the primacy of Peter, the Eucharist, comments by the evangelists, and
miracles; in effect, Jefferson drained the Gospels of any form of mystery. The
selection reveals Jefferson’s belief in God, the Commandments, practicing the
virtues, and an afterlife in which the just are rewarded and the evil punished.
Deism:[7]
The term used to certain
doctrines apparent in a tendency of thought and criticism that manifested itself
principally in England towards the latter end of the seventeenth century. The
doctrines and tendency of deism were,
however, by no means entirely confined to England, nor to the seventy years or
so during which most of the deistical productions were given to the world; for
a similar spirit of
criticism aimed at the nature and
content of traditional religious beliefs, and the substitution for them of a
rationalistic naturalism has
frequently appeared in the course of religious thought. Thus, there have been
French and German deists as well as English; while Pagan, Jewish, or Moslem
deists might be found as well as Christian.
Because of the individualistic
standpoint of independent criticism which they adopt, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to class together the representative writers who contributed to the
literature of English deism as
forming any one definite school, or to group together the positive teachings
contained in their writings as any one systematic expression of a concordant
philosophy. The deists were what nowadays would be called freethinkers, a name,
indeed, by which they were not infrequently known; and they can only be classed
together wholly in the main attitude that they adopted, viz. in agreeing to
cast off the trammels of authoritative religious teaching in favor of a free
and purely rationalistic speculation. Many of them were frankly materialistic in
their doctrines; while the French thinkers who subsequently built upon the
foundations laid by the English deists were almost exclusively so. Others
rested content with a criticism of ecclesiastical authority in teaching the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures , or
the fact of an external revelation of supernatural truth given
by God to man. In this last
point, while there is a considerable divergence of method and procedure
observable in the writings of the various deists, all, at least to a very large
extent, seem to concur. Deism, in its every manifestation was opposed to the
current and traditional teaching of revealed religion.
Is there any truth to deism?[8]
·
Deism
is the belief that a supernatural entity created the universe, but that this
being does not intervene in its creation. The Church describes it like this: “Some
admit that the world was made by God but as by a watchmaker who, once he has
made a watch, abandons it to itself (CCC 285).”
·
It’s fair to say that many people today identify with this viewpoint,
in that they believe there was some supernatural cause to the universe, but we
have now been left to our own devices. This idea extends back to the beginning
of human thought, but it developed significantly during the Enlightenment as
critiques of religion, and Christianity in particular, became more prevalent.
Many English deists placed considerable doubt on the supernatural character of
miracles and prophecy, arguing that they were inconsistent with reason.
·
What emerged from this epoch was the notion that all religions
were products of human invention, and that many Christian beliefs were
farcical. God was no longer seen as a divine entity that interfered in the
world but was instead, merely the first cause underlying the universe, being
both unknowable and untouchable. The universe was defined as self-operating,
self-regulating and self-explanatory and comprised of unvarying and inviolable
physical laws.
·
While some deists believe that the creator of the universe is an
abstract force, others hold that the entity is personal – that it has a mind,
but simply has no interest in the endeavors of human beings. This is radically
different from the Christian conception of God, which holds that God is not
only personal, but created us so that we could know and love him.
·
What distinguishes deism and theistic religions like Christianity
the most is the idea of God’s intervention in history. While deists hold that
the creator is far away, Catholics believe that God is with us at all times,
can hear us, and even answer our prayers. The Church refers to the creator as a
“living God” who gives life and reveals himself to the world. This is perhaps
best conveyed in the Incarnation, where Jesus became human, walked among us, and
died for our sins.
·
“Creation is the foundation of ‘all God’s saving plans’, the ‘beginning
of the history of salvation’ that culminates in Christ. Conversely, the mystery
of Christ casts conclusive light on the mystery of creation and reveals the end
for which ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’: from the
beginning, God envisaged the glory of the new creation in Christ.” (CCC 280) While
deists hold that God is apathetic towards his creation, Catholics rejoice in
the fact that God interacts and truly cares about us.
·
Of course, there is common ground between deists and theists in
that both believe in a creator of the universe. This mutual belief can act as
the starting point for a conversation about who God is, and whether it’s
plausible to believe that he intervenes in the world.
Fourth Day - Today Bring Me the Pagans and Those Who Do Not Know Me.
Most Compassionate
Jesus, You are the Light of the whole world. Receive into the abode of Your
Most Compassionate Heart the souls of pagans who as yet do not know You. Let
the rays of Your grace enlighten them that they, too, together with us, may
extol Your wonderful mercy; and do not let them escape from the abode which is
Your Most Compassionate Heart.
Eternal Father turn
Your merciful gaze upon the souls of pagans and of those who as yet do not know
You, but who are enclosed in the Most Compassionate Heart of Jesus. Draw them
to the light of the Gospel. These souls do not know what great happiness it is
to love You. Grant that they, too, may extol the generosity of Your mercy for
endless ages. Amen.
Daily
Devotions
[2] Hahn, Scott, Signs of Life; 40 Catholic
Customs and their biblical roots. Chap. 7. Lent and Easter.
[3]
Goffines Devout Instructions, 1896
[6]http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=370234
[8]
https://www.irishcatholic.com/is-there-any-truth-to-deism/
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