Saturday, April 8 : Eusebius the Gallican

“Let the heavens be glad and earth exult” (Ps 96[95],11). More brightly than the rays of the sun this day has shone forth for us from the brilliance of the tomb. Let the underworld cry out, for from this day on it has an offspring; let it rejoice because this is the day of its visitation; let it be glad because, after endless ages, it has seen a light unknown before and at last, in the darkness of its deepest night, has breathed again! O radiant light, now seen breaking from the heights of the whitening sky…, you have clothed with sudden brightness “those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Lk 1,79). For at Christ’s descent at once the everlasting night of hell shone out with light and the cries of the afflicted were silenced; the chains of those condemned broke off and fell; the malicious spirits were seized with stupor as though struck by a thunderbolt… No sooner does Christ come down than the grim doorkeepers, blind in the silence of their night, crouching in fear, whisper among themselves: “Who is this mighty one, shining with whiteness? Never has our hell received such as he; never has the world cast such a one into our maw… Had he been guilty, he would not possess such temerity; had some crime blackened him, he could never have dispersed our darkness with his shining. Yet if he is God, what is he doing in the tomb? If he is man, how does he have the courage? If he is God, what has he come here for? If he is man, how can he set prisoners free?… Oh cross, that undoes all our pleasures and give birth to our misfortune! A tree enriched us and a tree has ruined us. This mighty power, so feared by the people, has perished!”
maronite readings – rosary,team