[LA] The Saturday in Albis, which closes the Octave of Easter, traditionally marks the day when the neophytes, recently baptized in the Paschal Vigil, laid aside the white garments (albs) that they had received and worn throughout the entire festive week. This ceremony of the deposition of the liturgical garments did not, however, mean an abandonment of baptismal purity, but rather the beginning of the practical living of this same purity in daily life, now inserted as full members of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is for this reason that the liturgy exhorts them to desire the spiritual milk as newborn children. In Rome, the station of this day is celebrated in the archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the mother and head of all churches, recalling that it is from the bosom of the Church, represented by St. Peter and St. John in the race to the sepulchre, that the new children of God are born by water and the Spirit.
📖 Introit (Sl 104, 43; 104, 1)
Edúxit Dóminus pópulum suum in exsultatióne, allelúia: et eléctos suos in lætítia, allelúia, allelúia. Ps. Confitémini Dómino, et invocáte nomen ejus: annuntiáte inter gentes ópera ejus.
The Lord freed his people with rejoicing, alleluia; and his elect in joy, alleluia, alleluia. Ps. Praise the Lord and invoke his Name; announce among the nations his works.
📖 Epistle (I Pe 2, 1-10)
Beloved: Strip yourselves of all malice and all guile, dissimulation, envy and all slander. As newborn children, earnestly desire the pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may make progress unto salvation. For you have already tasted how kind the Lord is. Draw near to Him, the living Stone despised by men, but chosen and glorified by God. You yourselves, as living stones, let yourselves be built up into a spiritual edifice, into a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices, pleasing to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in the Scripture: Behold, I place in Sion the chief cornerstone, chosen, precious. He who has faith in it shall not be confounded. Thus then, to you who believe, glory is given; but to the unbelievers, the stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone and a stumbling block to those who collide against the word and do not believe, unto the end for which they were destined. You, however, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people, so that you may proclaim the powerful actions of Him who brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light. You, who once were not a people, but now are the people of God; you, who had not received mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
📖 Gospel (Jo 20, 1-9)
At that time, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went early in the morning, while it was still dark, to the sepulchre; and she saw the stone taken away from the tomb. She ran therefore and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, saying to them: They have taken the Lord from the sepulchre and we do not know where they have laid Him. Peter and the other disciple then set out and went to the place of the burial. The two ran together, but that disciple ran faster than Peter and reached the sepulchre first. And having stooped down, he saw the linen cloths lying on the ground; however, he did not enter. Then Simon Peter came, who was following him, and entered the sepulchre, seeing the linen cloths placed on the ground and the sudarium that they had placed on the head of the Master, not placed among the linen cloths, but folded apart in another place. Then the disciple who had arrived first at the sepulchre also entered, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet know that, according to the Scriptures, it was necessary that Jesus rise from the dead.
✝️ The stripping of the old man and the search for the risen Christ
The evangelical account of the morning of the resurrection places us before the soul that ardently seeks Christ, personified in the figures of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John. Saint Augustine reminds us that Mary sought the truth still in the darkness, being driven by a vehement love that reflects the soul thirsting for God. The race of the Apostles, in turn, symbolizes the vigor of the Church that awakens to the glory of its Master. The empty sepulchre and the linen cloths left aside are not mere factual proofs, but enclose profound theological mysteries. Saint Ambrose teaches that, by abandoning the burial cloths, Christ demonstrates that his glorified humanity is no longer subject to corruption, inviting us to leave in the tomb the garments of sin. Saint Thomas Aquinas adds that the removed stone represents the opening of the Scriptures, which were previously sealed, but now reveal the living Christ to all who seek him with an inflamed heart, as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux describes, making the soul pass from incipient sorrow to the luminous certainty of victory over death.
This new life in Christ is the core of the teaching of Saint Peter in today’s Epistle, which exhorts the faithful to strip themselves of all malice, guile and envy. Just as the newly baptized on this Saturday in Albis laid aside their visible white garments to definitively assume the interior garment of grace, we are called to desire the pure spiritual milk of sound doctrine. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus illuminates this passage by affirming that the resurrection is the restoration of humanity to its primary divine vocation; in rising, the Lord not only conquers the tomb, but elevates us to be built up as living stones in the temple of the Spirit. We cease to be strangers to become, as Saint Leo the Great emphasizes, a holy nation and a royal priesthood, totally free from the shadows of the old law and consecrated to offer an existential worship pleasing to God.
The synthesis of this mystery of elevation, purification and new life finds its perfect key in the Introit of this liturgy: “The Lord freed his people with rejoicing, and his elect in joy”. The liberation that took Mary Magdalene and the Apostles out of the anguish of the sepulchral darkness is the exact same force that rescues us from the power of original and actual sin. We were led by God out of the obscurity of our misery, so that, nourished with eagerness by the spiritual milk and forged as living and unshakable stones, we may announce among the nations the admirable works of him who called us. May the joy of the elect resound permanently in our hearts, keeping alive the immaculate whiteness of our soul well beyond the Paschal Octave, always walking toward the marvelous light of eternity.