The day of Resurrection is here!Blessed be God, He has risen!
I will post on the Gospel reading for the Easter
Vigil Mass. The Gospel is always the same for each of the three years, the
discovery of the empty tomb from St. John’s Gospel.Easter Vigil Mass follows the Lectionary
cycle, which for Year C is the empty tomb passage of Luke.
At daybreak on the
first day of the week
the women who had come
from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they
had prepared
and went to the tomb.
They found the stone
rolled away from the tomb;
but when they entered,
they did not find the
body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were
puzzling over this, behold,
two men in dazzling
garments appeared to them.
They were terrified
and bowed their faces to the ground.
They said to them,
"Why do you seek
the living one among the dead?
He is not here, but he
has been raised.
Remember what he said
to you while he was still in Galilee,
that the Son of Man
must be handed over to sinners
and be crucified, and
rise on the third day."
And they remembered
his words.
Then they returned
from the tomb
and announced all
these things to the eleven
and to all the others.
The women were Mary Magdalene,
Joanna, and Mary the mother of James;
the others who
accompanied them also told this to the apostles,
but their story seemed
like nonsense
and they did not
believe them.
But Peter got up and
ran to the tomb,
bent down, and saw the
burial cloths alone;
then he went home
amazed at what had happened.
~Lk 24:1-12
Fr. Sam French offers us a homily in which faith and reason work toward understanding the resurrection.
The changes and persistence
in the apostles and disciples after the Resurrection that something as earth
shaking as Jesus rising from the dead is what really convinces me.
Fr. Timothy Dore OFM
Cap of the Companions of St. Anthony provides a pastoral homily.
Alleluia, He is risen!
Sunday Meditation: "Why do you
seek the living one among the dead?He
is not here, but he has been raised."
Let us rejoice with the Victimae paschali laudes, which you should have heard on Easter
Sunday.I really like this simple
rendition in English by Corpus Christi Watershed.
The choir at our Mass performed it in Latin. I have posted on it in Latin and analyzed its beauty. I’m going to capture this English translation
attributed in the video to a Father Fortescue.
As
a short read at the Catholic Thought Book Club, we read “The Exultet,” the long
Eucharistic Prayer and Blessing of the Paschal Candle that is prayed at the Easter
Vigil Mass. Here it is in its entirety:
Exult, let them exult,
the hosts of heaven,
exult, let Angel
ministers of God exult,
let the trumpet of
salvation
sound aloud our mighty
King's triumph!
Be glad, let earth be
glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from
her eternal King,
let all corners of the
earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom
and darkness.
Rejoice, let Mother
Church also rejoice,
arrayed with the
lightning of his glory, (10)
let this holy building
shake with joy,
filled with the mighty
voices of the peoples.
(Therefore, dearest
friends,
standing in the awesome
glory of this holy light,
invoke with me, I ask
you,
the mercy of God
almighty,
that he, who has been
pleased to number me,
though unworthy, among
the Levites,
may pour into me his
light unshadowed,
that I may sing this
candle's perfect praises.) (20)
(V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with your spirit.)
V. Lift up your hearts.
R. We lift them up to the
Lord.
V. Let us give thanks to
the Lord our God.
R. It is right and just.
It is truly right and
just, with ardent love of mind and heart
and with devoted service
of our voice,
to acclaim our God
invisible, the almighty Father,
and Jesus Christ, our
Lord, his Son, his Only Begotten. (30)
Who for our sake paid
Adam's debt to the eternal Father,
and, pouring out his own
dear Blood,
wiped clean the record of
our ancient sinfulness.
These, then, are the
feasts of Passover,
in which is slain the
Lamb, the one true Lamb,
whose Blood anoints the
doorposts of believers.
This is the night,
when once you led our
forebears, Israel's children,
from slavery in Egypt
and made them pass
dry-shod through the Red Sea. (40)
This is the night
that with a pillar of
fire
banished the darkness of
sin.
This is the night
that even now, throughout
the world,
sets Christian believers
apart from worldly vices
and from the gloom of
sin,
leading them to grace
and joining them to his
holy ones.
This is the night,
(50)
when Christ broke the
prison-bars of death
and rose victorious from
the underworld.
Our birth would have been
no gain,
had we not been redeemed.
O wonder of your humble
care for us!
O love, O charity beyond
all telling,
to ransom a slave you
gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of
Adam,
destroyed completely by
the Death of Christ!
O happy fault (60)
that earned so great, so
glorious a Redeemer!
O truly blessed night,
worthy alone to know the
time and hour
when Christ rose from the
underworld!
This is the night
of which it is written:
The night shall be as
bright as day,
dazzling is the night for
me,
and full of gladness.
The sanctifying power of
this night (70)
dispels wickedness,
washes faults away,
restores innocence to the
fallen, and joy to mourners,
drives out hatred,
fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.
On this, your night of
grace, O holy Father,
accept this candle, a
solemn offering,
the work of bees and of
your servants’ hands,
an evening sacrifice of
praise,
this gift from your most
holy Church.
But now we know the
praises of this pillar,
which glowing fire
ignites for God's honor, (80)
a fire into many flames
divided,
yet never dimmed by
sharing of its light,
for it is fed by melting
wax,
drawn out by mother bees
to build a torch so
precious.
O truly blessed night,
when things of heaven are
wed to those of earth,
and divine to the human.
Therefore, O Lord,
we pray you that this
candle, (90)
hallowed to the honor of
your name,
may persevere undimmed,
to overcome the darkness
of this night.
Receive it as a pleasing
fragrance,
and let it mingle with
the lights of heaven.
May this flame be found
still burning
by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who
never sets,
Christ your Son,
who, coming back from
death's domain, (100)
has shed his peaceful
light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for
ever and ever.
R. Amen.
First,
to learn about the Exultet, you can get the history here at New Advent, and learn its significance from Fr. Michael J. Flynn at the USCCB site,
here.
Allow
me to provide a short analysis of the beautiful prayer. Fr. Flynn speaks about the first
section. Let’s look at all the
sections. I divide the major sections
into six.
The
first section is the rejoicing, comprising up through the first twelve lines. We are here to exult, to “shout aloud” our “mighty
King’s triumph” over death, over “gloom and darkness.”
The
next section, lines twelve through twenty I take to be the central theme of the
prayer. We are here to invoke God in His
mercy to “pour into me [the deacon or priest performing the ceremony] his light
unshadowed” so that he can sing of the “candle’s perfect praises.” It’s quite interesting that what I take to be
the central theme is in parentheses.
The
third section, by far the longest, stretches from line 21 “(V. The Lord be with
you.” through line 54, “had we but been redeemed.” I call this section the Acclamation of
Redemption both through the Passover and the Crucifixion. This section is characterized by the
rhetorical repetition called anaphora of “This is the night.” This is the night when we mystically link
back to the Passover, where God’s children were freed from bondage, and back to
the Crucifixion, where humanity was freed from the debt of sin, otherwise known
as the Redemption.
The
fourth section, from line 55, “O wonder of your humble care for us!” through
73, “drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty” explains what
the sanctifying power of redemption has done, that is, “destroyed completely” Adam’s
sin “by the death of Christ.”
The
fifth section, from line 74, “On this, your night of grace, O holy Father”
through line 88, “and divine to the human” is the gift offering of the candle
to God on this night “when things of heaven are wed to those of earth.” How beautiful.
And
finally the last section from line 89, “Therefore, O Lord” through the end is
the consecration of the candle, so that as Christ has overcome death, the
candle’s light will overcome darkness.
The prayer asks to mingle the candle’s light with the lights of
heaven.
