Sunday, April 24, 2011

An Octave, a Season, and a Sequence - EASTER!

Happy Easter, Coffee Talkers!

Ahhh, I love Easter! Especially because it is not only a day, nor just an octave (did you know Easter and Christmas are both celebrated with 8 days of liturgical solemnities, or high feasts?), but a fifty day liturgical season! The party goes longer than Lent, my people! All the way through Pentecost Sunday. Isn't it great?

I also love Easter Sunday in particular because it is one of the two Sundays of the year which have an obligatory 'sequence,' liturgical hymn used on certain feast days before the Gospel in the Mass. It is beautiful! Listen, read, and enjoy!

Alleluia!
Leslie


VICTIMAE Paschali
laudes immolent Christiani.
CHRISTIANS, to the Paschal Victim
offer sacrifice and praise.
Agnus redemit oves:
Christus innocens Patri
reconciliavit
peccatores.
The sheep are ransomed by the Lamb;
and Christ, the undefiled,
hath sinners
to his Father reconciled.
Mors et vita duello
conflixere mirando:
dux vitae mortuus,
regnat vivus.
Death with life contended:
combat strangely ended!
Life's own Champion, slain,
yet lives to reign.
Dic nobis Maria,
Quid vidisti in via?
Tell us, Mary:
say what thou didst see upon the way.
Sepulcrum Christi viventis,
et gloriam vidi resurgentis:
The tomb the Living did enclose;
I saw Christ's glory as He rose!
Angelicos testes,
sudarium et vestes.
The angels there attesting;
shroud with grave-clothes resting.
Surrexit Christus spes mea:
praecedet suos in Galilaeam.
Christ, my hope, has risen:
He goes before you into Galilee.
Scimus Christum surrexisse
a mortuis vere:
Tu nobis, victor Rex miserere.
Amen. Alleluia.
That Christ is truly risen
from the dead we know.
Victorious King, Thy mercy show!
Amen. Alleluia. 
 

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