Wednesday within the Octave of Easter
Solemnity
- Feast Day
- April 8
Wednesday within the Octave of Easter is celebrated as a Solemnity of the Lord. The Gospel proclaimed is Luke 24:13-35, the encounter of the risen Christ with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In this account, Christ explains the Scriptures to them and is recognized in the breaking of the bread, a passage that the Catholic tradition has read as a foundational text on the structure of the Mass: the Liturgy of the Word followed by the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
The first reading is Acts 3:1-10, the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple by Peter and John. The Sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes may be sung, and the double Alleluia continues to mark the dismissal throughout the Octave.
The Emmaus account read on Easter Wednesday is among the most important post-resurrection narratives for Catholic Eucharistic theology. Pope Saint John Paul II in Mane Nobiscum Domine (2004) framed the Year of the Eucharist around this passage, identifying it as the Emmaus pattern of every Mass: hearts burning at the proclamation of the Word, eyes opened in the breaking of the bread.
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