36. But on Holy Saturday all the curtains are taken away, because on the Passion of the Lord the veil of the temple was rent: and by that thing the spiritual intelligence of the Law was revealed unto us, which till that time lay hid, as is said afore: and the door of the kingdom of heaven is opened, and power was given unto us, that we cannot be overcome of our carnal concupiscence, unless we ourselves do yield. But the veil which separateth the sanctuary from the choir, is drawn or lifted up at vespers on every Saturday of Lent: when the office of the Sunday is begun, that the clergy may be able to look into the sanctuary: because the Sunday commemorateth the Resurrection. 37. This therefore is done on the six Sundays of Lent: because there was no age in which joy, and that joy eternal, was not made in some sort manifest, that joy which is concealed in heaven, as is signified by that veil. Thence is it that we fast not on the Sundays, and this on account of the glory of the Resurrection. For the first Sunday signifieth the joy which our parents enjoyed in the Paradise before the fall. {64} The second Sunday signifieth the joy of the few who were preserved in the ark of Noah, when all else were drowned in the deluge. The third, the gladness of the children of Israel, when in the time of Joseph others were afflicted with famine. The fourth, their joy when they lived with all peace under Solomon. [Footnote 320] The fifth, their gladness when returning from the Babylonian captivity. The sixth, that of the disciples from the Resurrection to the Ascension: when the bridegroom was with them in presence. [Footnote 320: 3 Kings iv, 20.] 38. In feasts likewise of nine lessons, [Footnote 321] when they occur in Lent, the before-mentioned veil is raised and lifted up. But this is not of the institution of the earliest times, because then no feast was celebrated in Lent. But then on whatever day a feast occurred, commemoration was made of it on the Saturday and Sunday following, according to the canon of Pope Martin; and so in the xiiith book of Burchardus. [Footnote 322] And all this on account of the sadness of that time. Afterwards the contrary use prevailed: that feasts of nine lessons occurring in Lent should be solemnly observed, and a fast nevertheless kept. [Footnote 321: For an explanation of the whole Catholic system of feasts, double, semi-double, and simple, the reader is referred to the _Tracts for the Times_, vol. iii.] [Footnote 322: S. Burchardus of Worms flourished in 1025: and is not to be confounded with John Burchardus, who wrote an explanation of the Mass for the use of the Venetian Church, which was published in 1559.]