Octave of Easter
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The Octave of Easter, sometimes known as Low Sunday (also known as White Sunday, St. Thomas Sunday, or Quasimodo Sunday) is the first Sunday after Easter. Since 1970, Low Sunday has been officially known as the Second Sunday of Easter (referring to the Easter season) in the Roman Catholic Church. In 2000, it was designated Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope John Paul II.
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[edit] Origins of the names
[edit] Catholic Church
Octave refers to both an eight-day feast or the eighth day of a feast. In the case of Easter, "Octave" refers to both the eight days and the eighth day.
St. Thomas Sunday is so called because the Gospel reading always relates the story of "Doubting Thomas," in which Thomas the Apostle comes to believe in the Resurrection only after having placed his finger in the nail marks and his hand in the side of Jesus. In the Gospel accounts, this event takes place on the Sunday after the Resurrection.
Divine Mercy Sunday is the culmination of the novena to the Divine Mercy of Jesus, a devotion given to St. Faustina and promoted by Pope John Paul II.
Prior to the 1970 Roman Missal, this day was called Low Sunday. It was sometimes said that the name derives from its relative unimportance compared to the solemnities of Easter Day, but it is more likely that "low" is a corruption of the Latin word Laudes, the first word of the Sequence of the day: "Laudes Salvatori voce modulemur supplici" (Let us sing praises to the Savior with humble voice). Laudes means "praises".
Traditionally, the newly baptised would receive baptismal gowns that would be worn until this day, and the official Latin name is Dominica in Albis, "Sunday in White". Hence "White" and "Alb" Sunday, which is also the etymology of Whitsunday (Pentecost).
The name Quasimodo came from the Latin text of the traditional Introit for this day, which begins "Quasi modo geniti infantes..." ("As newborn babes...", from the First Epistle of Peter 2:2). Literally, quasi modo means "in the manner of [i.e. newborn babes]".
[edit] Eastern Churches
In the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the first Sunday after Pascha (Easter) (hence also "Antipascha") is called Thomas Sunday, after the Gospel passage read that day which recounts the story of Christ appearing to St. Thomas in order to dispel his doubt about the Resurrection.
[edit] Literary Note
- Quasimodo, protagonist of the 1831 French novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. He was found abandoned on the doorsteps of Notre Dame on the Sunday after Easter and was named after this day.
