Paschaltide, extending from Easter Sunday to Saturday after Pentecost, commemorates the three glorious mysteries of the Resurrection of Our Lord (celebrated during forty days), of His Ascension (during ten days) and of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (during the Octave of Pentecost); they are Easter (the Resurrection), Ascension Day and Pentecost.
The First Mystery of Paschaltide:
The Resurrection
The triumph of Christ, the Vanquisher of death, is the central event of the whole of history, the culminating point of the Church’s life in her liturgical cycle, the most glorious event in His whole earthly course, the most striking proof of His Divinity, and the foundation of our whole Faith.
For the Pasch of Christ, that is His passage form death to life and from earth to heaven, finally sealed the victory which He had gained over the devil, the world and the flesh. It was for this that the Word became Incarnate, suffered and died. The power of this holy mystery is at work in the faithful through their whole life and more especially at Easter, to make them pass from sin to grace and later on from grace to glory. For if God became man (Christmas) it was to make us gods (Easter). Just as at Christmas it was necessary for us to be born with Christ to His new life, so at Easter our souls must follow Him in the glorious life which He is beginning.
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Book of Heaven
Volume 20; January 25, 1927
… Afterwards, He (Jesus) made Himself seen as a little child, staring at me so much, as to remain as though impressed within me; and He wanted me to look at Him, but so much as to remain impressed in Him. Then, all love and tenderness, He told me: “My daughter, this is the true image of the living in my eternal Will: the soul copies the Divine Will within herself, and the Supreme Will copies the soul, in such a way that your Creator keeps the copy of your image impressed within His womb. He holds her so dear, because He sees her exactly as He released her from her origin; she has lost nothing of her freshness and beauty. His paternal features are impressed in this copy; and this copy, in the paternal womb of God, sings for Him the praises of all Creation with all His works, and whispers continuously to His ear: ‘You made everything for me. You loved me so much, and still do, and I want to convert everything – everything into love for You.’ This copy is the portent of God in His womb; she is the memory of all His works.
This is the copy of the soul in God, and the copy of God in the soul, and the carrying out of the Divine Life within the creature. How beautiful is the Kingdom of my Will – the nothing dissolved in the All, and the All fused in the nothing; the lowliness of the creature rising into the Divine height, and the Divine height descending into the depth of the creature. They are two beings bound together, inseparable, transfused, identified, such that it can barely be recognized that they are two lives palpitating together. All the magnificence, the sanctity, the sublimeness, the prodigies of the Kingdom of my Will, will be exactly this: the faithful copy of the soul in God, and the copy of God, whole and beautiful, in the soul. Therefore, the children of the Kingdom of the Divine Fiat will be as many images of little gods in my Kingdom.”
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Further, Easter Week was the Feast of the Baptized, when the Church concentrating all her maternal care upon those whom St. Paul calls “her newborn babes”, strengthened them by giving them for seven days, together with the Holy Eucharist, instructions bearing upon the Resurrection, the model of our supernatural life.
Paschaltide bears the character of a time of renewal. Corresponding to the Fort Days after Our Lord’s Resurrection during which He built up His Church, it reminds us more especially of the infant Church herself; which is the reason why at this time, the Acts of the Apostles are read int he Epistles at Holy Mass.
Every year the Easter Cycle calls up the memory of our Baptism, our First Communion and our Confirmation, and ought to penetrate us more and more with this new life. Paschaltide is a reflection of heaven; and the Church, who at Passiontide wept over Our Lord and over sinners, has now a double reason for rejoicing, for Chirst is risen, and to herself many children reborn.
This Easter joy is a foretaste of our own resurrection and of our entry into the heavenly country where the Master is gone to prepare a place, and whither the Holy Spirit, whom He has sent to us, will lead us.
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Book of Heaven
Volume 15; February 16, 1923
… “Oh! how much will creatures love Me (Jesus), when they come to know what my Humanity did in the Divine Will, and what It made Me suffer for love of them. My Cross was not of wood – no; It was made of souls. It was them that I felt palpitating in the Cross on which the Divine Will laid Me – and It let none of them escape Me, It gave a place to each one, and in order to give a place to all, It stretched Me in such a harrowing way, and with pains so atrocious, that I could call the pains of my Passion little, and reliefs. Therefore, hasten, so that my Will may make known all that this Eternal Volition operated in my Humanity. This knowledge will win so much love, that creatures will bend to let It reign in their midst.”
Volume 7; September 14, 1906
… As I (Luisa) continued to see Him, no longer as a child, but crucified, I said to Him (Jesus): “My adorable Good, since when You suffered the crucifixion all souls had a place in your Humanity, what was my place?”
And He (Jesus): “My daughter, the place of the loving souls was in my Heart. As for you (Luisa), then, in addition to keeping you in my Heart, since you were to cooperate in Redemption with your state of victim, I kept you in all of my members, as help and relief.”
Volume 30; December 21, 1931
… “Therefore, let Me (Jesus) do, and I will dispose things in a way that My Word will not be a dead word—but Alive, that will give Life with all its Admirable Effects. More so, since these Celestial Fields and Seas of Ours will act as Mothers to the fortunate souls who would want to Live in them; they will educate them in a Divine Manner, they will nourish them with delicious foods taken from the Celestial table, and will raise them in a noble and holy way, such that in all their acts, steps and words, it will appear, written in clear notes: ‘They are similar to their Creator.’
“God will hear the melody of His Voice in their Word, His Power in their Works, the sweet motion of His Steps that runs after everyone for He wants them with Himself, in their Steps; and as though enraptured, He will say: ‘Who is it that is like Me? Who can imitate My Sweet, Harmonious, Powerful Voice, as to be able to Shake Heaven and earth? Who possesses such Strength as to capture Me into her works to make Me Operate together with her? Who is it? Who is it? Ah! it is one who Lives in Our Divine Fields. It is right that she be like Us in everything, as much as it is possible for the creature. She is Our Daughter, and that’s enough. Let Us allow her to imitate Us—to be like Us; she will be Our Glory of Our Creative Work, the longed-for one of her Celestial Father.’ These souls will form the New Hierarchy of the Celestial Fatherland, where there is a place reserved for them, that to no one else is it given to occupy.”
Divine Mercy Novena
