Paschale Gaudium [pp. 808-813]

PA SCHALE GA UDIUM.
The church took the pagan philosophy and made it the
buckler of faith against the heathen. She took the pagan, Roman Pantheon, temple of all the gods, and made it saired to
all the martyrs; so it stands to this day. She took the pagan
Sunday and made it the Christian Sunday. She took the pagan
Easter and made it the feast we celebrate during this season.
Sunday and Easter day are, if we consider their derivation,
much the same. In truth, all Sundays are Sundays only because they are a weekly, partial recurrence of Easter day. The
pagan Sunday was, in a manner, ant unconscious preparation
for Easter day. The sun was a foremost god with heathendom. Balder the beautiful, the White God, the old Scandinavians called him. The sun has worshippers at this hour in Persia and other lands. "Some of you," says Carlyle, "may
remember that fancy of Plato's. A man is kept in some dark,
underground cave from childhood till maturity; then suddenly
is carried to the upper airs: For the first time he sees the sufi
shining in its splendor overhead. He must fall down, sa3 s
Plato, and adore it." There is, in truth, something royal, kingly about the sun, making it a fit emblem of Jesus, the Sun of
Justice. Hence the church in these countries would seem to
have said, "Keep that old, pagan name. It shall remain consecrated, sanctified." And thus the pagan Sunday, dedicated to
Balder, became the Christian Sunday, sacred to Jesus. The
sun is a fitting emblem of Jesus. The Fathers often compared
Jesus to the sun; as they compared Mary to the moon, the beautiful moon, the beautiful Mary, shedding her mild, beneficent light
on the darkness and night of this world-not light of her own;
no Catholic says this; but-light reflected from the sun, Jesus.
I am stating a scientific though very elementary fact when
I say that all the light and heat in the world come directly,
or originally, from the sun. The warmth and light which are
hidden in the wood and the coal are bottled sun-light and sunheat. The noble tree, as it rears its stately head and extends
its spreading branches, is drinking sun.light and sun-heat at
every pore. Let the tree fall to the ground, be covered with
crusts of earth, undergo chemical changes till it be converted
into coal. The light and heat remain there still; remain like
imprisoned genii; but at the "open sesame," the right spoken
word of command, they will manifest themselves again. The
warmth which we enjoy, as we sit by our cheerful fires in the
cold evenings of winter, is sun-warmth set free again after a
captivity of ages; the gas-flame over-head is sun-light.
VOL. LVIII.-54
809
1894.]