Augustine here explains the connection between the eighth day, baptism, circumcision, the resurrection as new creation & Sunday as the Christian day of Easter worship instead of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath....
Cyril of Alexandria on the resurrection of Jesus Christ as giving us a sure hope, guaranteed by the Spirit, that we too will rise again....
One great way to observe the early Christian tradition of the Octave or eight days of Easter is to read a different resurrection account from the gospels each day of Easter week. Here is a list of the resurrection accounts, one for each day...
Saint Gregory of Nyssa here provides a moving explanation of a phrase from Psalm 118 that is a traditional refrain for the great resurrection feast known as Great Pascha or Easter: This is the Day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be...
Irenaeus explains how the Son, the Word, became man so that he might share with his immortality with us who are corruptible and mortal. Christ is, then, the first fruits of the Resurrection....
Here St. Cyril of Alexandria comments on the promise of God the Father to pour out his Holy Spirit on all mankind in order to renew and restore our wounded human nature. In his baptism, the Lord Jesus Christ, "the first-fruits of our restored nature," receives...
Origen, commenting on the book of Joshua, shows that the early Church saw the sacrament of baptism not only as the crossing of the Red Sea, but also as the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land....
Leo the Great explains how the Ascenion increases our faith in what is unseen, namely the divinity of Christ, and how our Redeemer's visible presence after the Ascension passes into the sacraments....
This excerpt on the sacrament of baptism from St. Basil the Great’s book On the Holy Spirit (ca. AD 360) describes how baptism fulfills what Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3 about being born again in water and the Spirit. He also here outlines...
Cyril of Alexandria here emphasizes that the risen body of Jesus Christ, received in the Eucharist, gives life to those who receive it, expelling death and corruption....