The following Sunday forms the conclusion of the Easter octave, and, accordingly, was formerly called simply _octava paschæ_, or _pascha clausum_, later it was called White Sunday, _dominica in albis_, _scil._ _deponendis_, because the neophytes wore their white baptismal garments until this day. When Easter ceased to be the day for baptisms, it was appointed, as being in harmony with White Sunday, that children should receive their first communion, and renew their baptismal vows. Rabanus Maurus[180] further observes that in his time confirmation was given on White Sunday. The prayers during the Easter octave contain references to the two great sources of festal gladness, the resurrection of our Lord and the increase in the number of the faithful. The prayers for the third, fifth, and sixth ferias are specially concerned with the latter, while the Gospels throughout are occupied with the appearances of our Lord after His resurrection to His disciples. The Epistles, however, are either for the most part taken from the Acts, or describe that spiritual renewal of mankind which follows upon the work of redemption. The prayers for the whole octave, with the exception of two on Monday, are the same at the present day as those in the Gregorian sacramentary.[181] For the following Sundays, until Whitsunday, they only occasionally agree with the prayers of this sacramentary, being taken bodily, with two unimportant exceptions, from the Gelasian. The Sundays lead up to the fulfilment of Christ’s redemptive work and His return to the Father. The Gospels from the third to the fifth are accordingly taken from the sixteenth chapter of St John. Right in the middle of the period anciently called _quinquagesima_, that is to say on the twenty-fifth day after Easter, or, in other words, on the Wednesday of the fourth week after Easter, the event recorded in St John vii. 1 was formerly commemorated in certain churches. In the midst of the feast of Tabernacles, Christ went up into the Temple and taught (St John vii. 14). On the last day of the feast, He stood in the Temple and cried, referring to the usual libation of the Jews on this day,[182] “If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink” (v. 37). On this day, in the Eastern Churches, the rite of blessing the waters still takes place, which is not to be confused with that which is performed on the 6th January, in honour of the baptism of Jesus in Jordan (_missa aquæ_). This commemoration is called by the Greeks μεσοπεντεκοστή, _festum mediæ pentecostes_. The name, as we have already observed, belongs to the oldest ecclesiastical terminology, according to which Pentecost meant not Whitsunday but the whole period from Easter to Whitsunday.[183] 6. _The Preparation for Easter—Quadragesima and the Fast_