It is now time for us, beloved children, to turn our thoughts to the passion of our Lord. The sacrilegious leaders of the Jews and their impious priests had long and often been looking for a chance to hurl themselves on Christ and vent their furious spite on him. But it was only at the solemn feast of the pasch that they received the power to do so; for this is what had been determined, so we are to understand, in the very designs of God himself. Promises that had long been hinted at in the riddle of a mysterious rite, still required to be openly fulfilled; a variety of different sacrifices were still to be completed by one single oblation. Shadows must vanish before the solid reality, images give way to the presence of the Truth; and so the ancient form of worship is concluded by a new sacrament.