Dear brothers and sisters, now that we have passed the halfway point in the fifty days of Passover, it is worth remembering what Tertullian, a writer from the end of the second millennium, wrote about the Passover.e century, early 3rde He said: "Count all the solemnities of the Gentiles: they will not be able to keep the fifty days of the Passover.
The celebration of Passover, the first and most important feast of the Christian year, continues for fifty days, until the day of Pentecost, in other words, the fiftieth.
And during this Passover Day, which lasts fifty days, we read the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse of Saint John, which show us the Church at its birth here below and at its fulfilment there above.
We are living twenty centuries after the time of the Acts of the Apostles, and yet it is still what we are living that this book is talking about when, for example, as we heard earlier, "Paul and Barnabas, having gathered the Church together, reported all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles", and when "they strengthened the courage of the disciples; they exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying: "We must go through many trials to enter the kingdom of God". "
And if we are not yet in the time - which will no longer be the time - of the New Jerusalem, we are already citizens of the Holy City referred to in the reading from Revelation, "the dwelling of God with men, where he will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples, and he, God with them, will be their God".
And this city has only one law, the one that Jesus spoke of in the Gospel: "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
In the world we live in, could there be anything more new than loving one another?
This, then, is what we experience in the celebration of the fifty days of Easter, and what we experience every Sunday, every "Lord's Day", throughout the year. Our whole life as Christians is and must be a Passover.
Let us make our own what the prayer said at the beginning of this liturgy: "Eternal and all-powerful God, continue to fulfil in us the Paschal Mystery; sustain and protect those whom you have wished to renew in holy baptism: may they bear much fruit and attain to the joys of eternal life.
Fr Bartomeu
