Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

126 Divine Mercy: The Heart Of The Gospel historian o f Syrian literature, A. Baumstark, is Marut(h) di Maiperqa , who surely wrote later than Nazianzen. It is not known whether this lat­ ter drew from Gregory, or whether both drew from a previous common Syrian source (see in the same source as above, p .418). Fr. Danielou explains the matter further, saying that “Sunday” is defined as both the memorial (genethlion) o f the Resurrection, and the figure of the future life (apokatastasis). The new element—which is really only a development o f the same theme— is the parallelism between the two creations, which both began on the Lord’s Day, this Day being at once that o f creation and that o f the Resurrection. The world of grace is thus as it were a second creation, more admirable and more sublime than the first. This is a new stage in the formation o f the Christian vision of history, which now appears as a sequence of two cre­ ations, o f which the second is a more sublime expression o f the first, without depreciating the first for all that: it is still thaumaste, wonderful. We have here a first expression o f the formula from the Offertory of the Roman Mass before Vatican II: Deus qui humanae substantiae digni­ tatem mirabiliter (thaumastos) condidisti et mirabilius (thaumastoteros) reformasti. Fr. Danielou concludes that on this account Gregory is a witness to the eschatological symbolism of the ogdoad, that is, the Octave. What is that eschatological symbolism? We need to probe this matter because, I believe, it will explain to us why Jesus insists on the Octave Day o f the Pasch (Easter) to be the Feast o f Mercy. I believe it will also show us why Our Lord insisted that the Divine Mercy message and devotion is to prepare the world for His final return. Another great Doctor of the Church, St. Gregory o f Nyssa, the broth­ er o f St. Basil the Great, who was an intimate friend o f Gregory of Nazianzen, takes up this theme o f the symbolism o f the Octave and develops it philosophically and mystically. As a philosopher he is con­ cerned with the mystery of time, and as a mystic he desires the coming o f the Eighth Day. Before we go into that aspect of the Feast o f Mercy, however we need to try to understand why Gregory Nazianzen considers the feast of the Sunday that is the Octave of Easter to be more sublime and more won­ derful than Easter Sunday, without depreciating Easter Sunday for all that.