One of the nice things about praying the Liturgy of the Hours it that it helps you to remember that some solemnities don’t just end when the day is over. Christmas and Easter both have octaves and you are reminded of that as the prayers repeat during that time. Easter as the greatest feast in the Christian life is special in that each day of the Easter Octave is a solemnity.
So what we really have is a form of liturgical Groundhog’s Day. Each day in the Octave we once again celebrate the Solemnity of Easter. Yet we won’t be tempted to smash our alarm clocks despite the psalms being played are the same each day. Unlike Bill Murray’s character we know when the repeating day in the octave is going to end.
Lent also provided us an opportunity as in the movie Groundhog’s Day as to refocus our priorities avoiding those nihilistic paths that might seem to lead to pleasure, but not the ultimate joy of Easter.
So truly celebrate this Octave of Easter and the fact that Friday during the octave is not a day of penance.
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Yes, it is one of those tech triumphs how in the fantastically complex yet exquisitely ordered Divine Office, certain ribbons (the markers, or index-pointers which show where we presently are) simply STOP where they are, and certain prayers repeat – again and again, for eight days.
The Church is SO MUCH like the little child who counts down to the big feasts (or like the Romans, who also counted down in their calendars. See below.) – and THEN when the big day arrives, says:
“Mommy, I don’t want Easter to end, I don’t WANT it to be over! Let’s do it all over again tomorrow.”
And the Church says, “Very well. I grant your request. It shall STAY Easter for eight days.”
No wonder that the School Cheer for “Chesterton University” is “Do it again” – with no apologies due to the Beach Boys who have a song by that title:
The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.
[GKC Orthodoxy CW1:263-4]
And in keeping with that theme, let us remind each other – AGAIN AND AGAIN – that Christ our Lord has risen. Our God knows the way out of the grave, and will show us provided we follow Him. [See
GKC TEM CW2:382]
As the antiphon says: “The splendor of Christ risen from the dead has shone upon the people redeemed by His blood. Alleluia!”
Note: Yes, in the Roman calendar the day-numbers DECREASE through the month, counting down to the next big “feast” – the Kalends, Nones, or Ides. It is a curiosity that they alone (to my knowledge at least) possessed of all cultures in B.C. – almost as if they KNEW something was coming. (And if you doubt me, see Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue and you will be stunned speechless.) Sorry Mister “Golden Bough” Frasier with your idea that Christians simply stole pagan ideas: our God (who is outside of time) can arrange such things in advance. Gosh, every author (and every programmer) knows that!
And while we’re on the topic of count-downs, don’t forget the first launch into outer space was a count-UP… in Verne’s From the Earth To the Moon, and that went to the biblical 40. (According to the story, that was the calculated moment for the trajectory they hoped to attain.)
Wow! Jeff, thanks for a whimsical look at The Octave of Easter and Dr. Thursday, for the added enlightenment!!