April 7 - Happy Quasimodo Day!

Sunday - April 7, 2013

Today, you should remember Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo.  Here’s why  . . .

This is the “Second Sunday of Easter.”  It is sometimes called “Thomas Sunday” because of the Gospel reading about the doubting Apostle.  It is also called “Quasi Modo Sunday” for the first word of the opening chant which comes from 1 Peter 2:2-3 which says: “Like newborn babes (Sicut modo infantes), long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”

Quasi modo and Sicut modo are interchangeable.  Quasi modo reflects a Latin Scripture version predating what became the Vulgate.  So, today’s Mass begins by exhorting the newly baptized. 

In the ancient Church the newly baptized were called infantes.  They wore their white baptismal robes for “octave” period after Easter during which they received special instruction from the bishop about the sacred mysteries and Christian life to which they were not admitted before the Vigil rites.  On this Sunday they removed their robes, which were deposited in the cathedral treasury as a perpetual witness to their vows.  They were then “out of the nest” of the bishop, as it were, on their own in living their Catholic lives daily. 

The Victor Hugo character, poor Quasimodo, born with various defects, was abandoned as an infant in Notre Dame on this very Sunday… “Quasimodo” Sunday. He is raised by the Archdeacon of Notre Dame who makes him the bell-ringer of the Cathedral… which makes young Quasimodo deaf.

Poor Quasimodo.  His name, with the “quasi… almost”, indicates that he is only nearly human in the context of the society in which he was called by God to live.  But he utters some of the most human things, shows moments of the most poignant human agony ever penned.  Who in reading the book will forget his first, great, burning tear?

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/04/oh-all-that-ive-ever-loved/