THE
P RTAL
April 2016
Page 19
Low Sunday
... the Last Day of the Easter Octave, Quasimodo
Sunday, but now Divine Mercy Sunday
Fr Julian Green takes us deeper into these names
Our early
celebration of Easter this year means that the first Sunday of
April is Low Sunday. This is a Sunday which has many names. Low Sunday
itself is fairly self-explanatory after the high feast of Easter Sunday, though, as the last day of the Octave,
those “eight days which are but one day”, it is still a day of great solemnity.
Odd to our ears may be another name
given to this Sunday: Quasimodo Sunday.
Like Gaudete and Laetare in Advent
and Lent, this name is derived from the
first words of the introit antiphon of the
Mass, which is a verse of the first epistle
of St Peter: “Like newborn infants, you
must long for the pure, spiritual milk…”
(I Peter 2:2). The newborn infants in
mind are the neophytes – those who
were baptised at the Easter Vigil Mass,
newly born from the waters of baptism.
It is in reference to the neophytes that
we receive another name for this day:
the Dominica in albis depositis, or the
Sunday of the laying aside of the white
garments in which the newly baptised
were clothed immediately after their
baptism.
among the young and movements of the
New Evangelisation.
It was remarkable that the Pope who
was so dedicated in