NINETEENTH LESSON
Holy Saturday.
"Buried with Christ in Baptism."—ST. Paul, Colossians 2:12.
The Church celebrates today the remembrance of our Lord in His sepulchre and descending into hell or limbo. The Gospel tells us that on the day Jesus Christ died, when it was evening, there came a certain rich man from Arimathaea named Joseph, who had taken no part with the Jews in their plot, for he was secretly a disciple of our Saviour, and he went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate having allowed him to take iIt from the cross, Joseph wrapped it up in a shroud and laid it in a new sepulchre which he had hewn out of a rock, and he rolled a great stone before the entrance of the sepulchre and went his way.
And the same day, the chief Priests and the Pharisees came together to Pilate saying; "Sir, we have remembered that that seducer said while he was yet alive: `After three days I will rise again.' Command therefore the sepulchre to be guarded until the third day, lest perhaps his disciples come, and steal him away, saying to the people: `He is risen from the dead.'" Pilate said to them, "You have a guard; go, guard it as you will." And they departing, made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting guards near it.
The precautions of our Saviour's enemies were quite superfluous, my children, they could not impair His power; and in reality they only served to make the miracle of the resurrection still more wonderful. Whilst the sacred body of Jesus Christ rested in the sepulchre, His soul descended into hell, not, my friends, into that hell where the wicked receive the chastisement of their crimes, but in a place of rest, called also by the name of limbo, where the souls of the patriarchs and of all the righteous, who had died since the beginning of the world, were assembled together. These men had led virtuous and holy lives, they had been faithful to God, and yet they still remained away from heaven; for its gates had been closed to all men by the sin of Adam, and no one could re-enter them before the death of the Son of God had satisfied his Father's justice. Jesus Christ descended into hell for the delivery of these souls, who impatiently waited His coming. They followed their divine Redeemer to heaven the very day of His own glorious Ascension.
In the earliest ages of the Church, my children, it was the custom, on Holy Saturday, to baptize the catechumens, that is to say, those of the pagans who had been converted to the Christian religion. To complete their religious instruction, during the service a great number of ceremonies took place as well as many pious lectures. The office of Holy Saturday has not been altered, though this day is now no longer specially set apart for conferring baptism. The priests go processionally to the baptismal font, to bless the water which during the year is to be made use of, for the administration of the Holy Sacrament of Baptism to little children. At this procession is carried a very large wax-taper, called the Paschal Candle, which has been solemnly blessed at the beginning of the ceremony; this wax-taper is the figure of Jesus Christ risen from the dead. It remains lit in church during the offices, till the feast of the Ascension, in commemoration of the time our Lord passed on earth after his resurrection. The fire with which the paschal candle is lit, is a new fire, that is to say, a fire that has not yet been made use of. The Priest blesses it with great pomp. Five grains of incense, in the shape of a cross, are fixed in the paschal candle, in remembrance of the five wounds of Jesus Christ, the marks of which, he deigned to keep, even after he had risen from the tomb.
My children, at Mass on Holy Saturday, the Church begins to celebrate the triumph of Jesus Christ's resurrection, and rejoices beforehand at this event, so fruitful in its results for all Christians, so glorious for their divine Master; the bells, which have been unheard since the Mass on Maundy Thursday, ring out once more their joyful peals. The Gloria in Excelsis sung by the angels at our Lord's birth, and never chanted by the Church in days of mourning and penance, now announce that second birth of Jesus Christ coming forth out of the tomb. Finally, under the arched roof of the house of prayer, resounds the joyful Alleluia! God be praised; and this cry of gratitude, uttered by the Hebrews when they were delivered from Egypt, becomes the Christian's cry of gratitude for our Saviour's deliverance, for their own deliverance, from sin, that most dire bondage.
My dear children, are you really disengaged from those bad habits, which are so many bonds holding you fast in the pangs of evil? Today each faithful Christian ought to lay his sins, his weaknesses, and his failings in the tomb of Jesus. If you have done so, you may then this morning, in church, sing with a full and gladsome heart the joyful Alleluia!
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