Bright Thursday. Our Venerable Fathers Joseph the Hymnographer (886) and George of Maleum.
Bright Week. No fasting or abstention from foods.
Acts 2:38-43. John 3:1-15.
Read Acts 2:38-43
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
The week of Pascha is known as “Bright Week.” Why “bright?” Aside from being in the midst of the luminous celebration of the Resurrection of Christ, those baptized, chrismated, and given the Holy Eucharist at the Paschal Vigil are robed in their bright, white baptismal garments. Historically, they would wear these garments throughout the entirety of the week. Each day of Bright Week, we continue to sing, “All you who have been baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ! Alleluia!” instead of the Trisagion hymn (“Holy God…”) at the Divine Liturgy. We have so many reminders of the paschal character of baptism!
At the beginning of today’s reading, Peter says: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39). On this Wednesday of Bright Week, we hear how after receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, Peter preached and called all to repentance and baptism.
Having just journeyed through Great Lent, “the Season of Repentance,” and arriving at Bright Week, we are once again greeted with this familiar command to repent. Although we have been baptized, the work of our repentance is not over. We continue to turn away from God and be unfaithful to Him, even though He is always faithful to us. We need to constantly renew our minds and turn back to Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
This week, let us remember our own baptism. In the Paschal Canon of St. John Damascene which we pray at Resurrection Matins, we sing: “I was buried yesterday with You, O Christ; but today I rise, resurrected with You. Yesterday I crucified myself with You, O Savior, now glorify me with You in Your kingdom.” In light of this and since we’ve been meditating on the Passion, death, and Resurrection of Christ, let us call to mind the words of St. Paul who said: “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Since we have died to sin in baptism, we must commit to living in our new way of life.