Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

132 Divine Mercy: The Heart Of The Gospel true nature, the stripping off o f the garments o f skin, symbols of mortality and the carnal life, purification from the stains o f sin, restoration to royal dignity (.B and L, p. 274). Are not these the results that the very special grace, promised by Jesus to those who will approach the Fount o f Life on the Feast of Mercy, has for its puipose? Finally, it must be admitted that the Sunday in the Octave o f Easter according to the most ancient and most orthodox teaching o f the Church, is the most eminent day o f the Christian Liturgical Year, the “Eighth Day” pa r excellence , the most privileged day of the octave. Fr. Danielou sums up the matter thus: It is in connection with the Sunday within the octave o f Easter that St. Augustine treats in his sermons o f the problem o f the octave. We have seen that this octave-day was solemnly celebrat­ ed in Cappadocia, where Gregory o f Nazianzen devotes a whole sermon to it. It was especially celebrated in Africa (Epist. II, 55, 32, P.L., XXXIII, 220). This was in a way the “eighth day” par excellence, the most privileged octave-day. Thus, it was normal that on this occasion the theology o f the octave should be expressed (B and L, p.276). And he concludes: This allows us once more to bring out the connection between the liturgy o f the Lord’s Day and the theology o f history as this is found in the Fathers. For them, liturgical time was the sacrament of the time o f sacred history. The Bible, the liturgy, theology and mysticism converged in the same eschatological perspective, of which they represented different aspects which were interrelated. We are therefore in the very heart of a conception in which one and the same theme, that of the week and the eighth day, exists in different modes, prefigured in the Old Testament, accomplished in Christ, sacramentally present in the liturgy and fulfilled by escha- tology. Each school o f thought emphasized a different aspect, but all are connected with the same central idea (B and L, p. 276,277). In the light o f these elaborations and o f this last quoted statement, does not this “Eighth Day”— this most privileged Octave o f the Pasch, this Feast of The Divine Mercy— constitute a “liturgical object lesson,”