‘If we compare the indifference shown by the Catholics of the present age for the Rogation Days, with the devotion wherewith our ancestors kept them, we cannot but acknowledge that there is a great falling off in faith and piety. Knowing, as we do, the importance attached to these Processions by the Church, we cannot help wondering how it is that there are so few among the Faithful who assist at them. Our surprise increases when we find persons preferring their own private devotions to these public Prayers of the Church, which to say nothing of the result of good example, merit far greater graces than any exercises of our own fancying.
 
The whole Western Church soon adopted the Rogation Days. They were introduced into England at an early period; so, likewise, into Spain, and Germany. Rome herself sanctioned them by her own observing them; this she did in the 8th century, during the Pontificate of St Leo the Third. She gave them the name of the Lesser Litanies, in contradistinction to the Procession of the 25th of April, which she calls the Greater Litanies. With regard to the Fast which the Churches of Gaul observed during the Rogation Days, Rome did not adopt that part of the institution. Fasting seemed to her to throw a gloom over the joyous forty days, which our Risen Jesus grants to his Disciples; she therefore enjoined only abstinence from flesh-meat during the Rogation Days. The Church of Milan, which, as we have just seen, so strictly observes the Rogations, keeps them on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, that is to say, after the forty days devoted to the celebration of the Resurrection.
 
If, then, we would have a correct idea of the Rogation Days, we must consider them as Rome does, - that is, as a holy institution which, without interrupting our Paschal joy, tempers it. The purple vestments used during the Procession and Mass do not signify that our Jesus has fled from us, but that the time for his departure is approaching. By prescribing Abstinence for these three days, the Church would express how much she will feel the loss of her Spouse, who is so soon to be taken from her’.

​from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger OSB, 1805-1875

​O Almighty God, who hast created the earth for man, and man for thy glory: mercifully hear the supplications of the people, and be mindful of thy covenant; that both the earth may yield her increase, and the good seed of thy word may bring forth abundantly, to the glory of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Divine Worship: The Missal.

A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, no words, no tears; 
My heart within me like a stone 
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears; 
Look right, look left, I dwell alone; 
I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief 
No everlasting hills I see; 
My life is in the falling leaf: 
O Jesus, quicken me. 
 
My life is like a faded leaf, 
My harvest dwindled to a husk: 
Truly my life is void and brief 
And tedious in the barren dusk; 
My life is like a frozen thing, 
No bud nor greenness can I see: 
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring; 
O Jesus, rise in me. 
 
My life is like a broken bowl, 
A broken bowl that cannot hold 
One drop of water for my soul 
Or cordial in the searching cold; 
Cast in the fire the perish’d thing; 
Melt and remould it, till it be 
A royal cup for Him, my King: 
O Jesus, drink of me.

Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894

‘Contemplate the process of resurrection. In one sense, resurrection is an instantaneous act, as the Incarnation was an instantaneous act, and as is our regeneration. But as our Lord lived on earth many years, so we to have to rise gradually to the glory of our resurrection, as the continuous action of our will stablishes us in union with Christ. It is a process, instantaneous in its origin, but continually carried out by all the acts of the Christian life, till its perfect development at the last great day in the redemption of our bodies. As our nature takes into itself the substance of the resurrection life of Christ, we are incorporated into Christ. Christ must be incorporated into us till there remains no faculty that is not full of Christ.
 
The resurrection of Christ is no mere pledge of a future resurrection. It is the principle of resurrection now going on within us, and in which we must act, moment by moment. The world would have no power over us if we would but realise that we indeed bear within ourselves him who is himself all that future glory’.

​Richard Meux Benson SSJE, 1824-1915

Fr Frederick Faber, Cong. Orat., 1814-1863
The English Catholic Hymn Book no.881

‘The Collect was composed in 1549 and is based on the Epistle and Gospel [in the Book of Common Prayer].

In the collect today we still dwell on the accomplished work of Christ - His sacrifice and perfect example. We pray that we may thankfully receive the benefits of His great sacrifice and follow His perfect example. To endeavour ourselves is the old English way of saying bind ourselves; “devoir” is an old Norman word for duty. So then to say I endeavour myself means I make it my duty.

Our Collect today still continues the Easter message; in it we speak of how God has given to us His only Son to be unto us a sacrifice for sin. He made Himself a sacrifice for sin when He offered up Himself on the Cross on Good Friday. Our sins were borne by Him upon the Altar of the Cross, so that He might die for our sins. He rose again that we might have a new birth unto righteousness. One thing, however, we can never forget, and that is His sacrifice for sin, because we continually plead that sacrifice in the Eucharist.

Thy offering still continues new
Before the righteous Father’s view;
Thyself the Lamb for ever slain,
Thy Priesthood doth unchanged remain;
Thy years, O God, can never fail,
Nor Thy blest work within the veil. (Charles Wesley)

The Collect calls this Sacrifice. “His inestimable benefit”, because we can never really estimate the great benefit that the world throughout the ages, and in the ages to come, has and will derive from His great sacrifice. It surpasses understanding’. 

​from Teaching the Collects, 1965, by ​H.E. Sheen

‘Now let us celebrate the Mass, directed by Philip and James. During the Fore-Mass they are our guides, readying us for the Sacrifice proper.
 
…In the Gospel [St John 14:1-13] we see the two apostles [Philip and James] with Christ between them. What a beautiful setting Easter time gives to the farewell sermons of Jesus! He is taking leave of His Church before ascending to heaven. He speaks softly, consolingly. Surely He will return; He leaves simply to prepare a place for us, then He will come to take us with Him so that we too may be where He is. In the midst of earthly troubles we need not be sad; we have a home in heaven. He Himself is readying it.
 
Jesus set the goal, He also showed the way. Disturbed and saddened, the apostles acted as if they knew neither the goal nor the way. With indulgent kindness Jesus said: I am the Way and, therefore, the Truth and the Life likewise. A lesson of tremendous importance! He is the focal point of our religious life, and consequently the only Way to heaven. Therefore we love to come to Mass where as the Way He gives instruction and commands, where as the Truth He speaks the Gospel message, and where as the Life He gives us His very Body in the blessed Eucharist.
 
…The sermon is over, our preachers are finished; these many truths are their legacy to us. Now we continue with the Sacrifice of Christ. It is also our sacrifice, we must offer it with Him. Therefore in solemn procession we approach the altar, led by our two apostles. There upon the altar they place the sum and substance of lives lived to the full – their joy, their sorrow, their labour for souls. And like an eagle enticing its young to fly into the light of the sun, so the two apostles invite us to unite our life’s sacrifices to theirs and offer all to the Father in union with Christ’s supreme oblation.
 
The two apostles have completed their task. Now they reverently withdraw. They take a position before the Lamb that was slain and yet lives, and offer the Mass with us. In Christ we constitute one great body – the faithful, the apostles, the saints – Christ’s mystical Body’.

​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that-pierced-died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

​John Updike, 1932-2009

‘When Easter comes, the Church delights to remind herself of that newness which is in the risen Christ. On Holy Saturday morning, a new spark must be struck from the flint, to light a new set of candles and lamps; new holy water must be blessed, and a new font; fresh cloths are spread on the altars, and the tabernacle itself, on Easter morning, is full of freshly consecrated Hosts. We are beginning all over again, making all things new. And we have a right to do so, for in the order of grace there is perpetual novelty. In the order of nature there is perpetual affectation of novelty, which never comes to anything; there is nothing new, the wise man reminds us, under the sun, however much, at the moment, things look different. Whereas in the order of grace there is no change apparent, but in truth it is a perpetual spring, inexhaustible in its fecundity.
 
…[I]n the life of grace, ah, if we could only see it, there is a perpetual burgeoning of new life, nor merely from one Easter to another, from one retreat to another, but with every worthy reception of the sacraments. Perpetual spring, perpetual renovation of our natures, if we could only catch the hour of grace, utilise it, make it our own. Whatever you are, and at whatever time of life you are, that possibility of spiritual renewal is with you no less surely than if you were a boy at school again, or just leaving school to make your way in life. Christ is risen; those tidings can never lose their force with age, nor be staled by repetition; Christ is risen, and life, for the Christian, is always new’.

from an Easter meditation, 1939, ​by Mgr Ronald Knox, 1888-1957

‘Conquering death by death. It is here that we must start in thinking about Christ as Lord. As St John saw in his vision, Jesus holds the keys of hell because he has died and yet is alive. And in the gospels it is the risen Christ who says, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me”. The earliest Christians thought of the resurrection as the event in which God invested Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth, with authority, brought him to sit on his right hand in heaven to share his, God’s, kingship. Why? First and foremost, because Jesus raised from the dead “dies no more”, as Paul says. The reason Jesus is set free from all the constraints and limits which keep men and women at a distance from God and from each other - from the principalities and powers of the new Testament. The resurrection is not a resuscitation; it is the gift of the new kind of life, the life that exists on the far side of death and hell, of destruction and disintegration. He will not die again, “death has no more dominion over him”. He is no longer the prisoner of the past; he is not an historical memory, whose life is neatly tied up and put away. No, from now on he belongs to all people and all times, he is available to all. He is free’.

Rowan Williams, Lord Williams of Oystermouth (Archbishop of Canterbury, 2002-2012)

Easter Wings

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store, 
Though foolishly he lost the same, 
Decaying more and more, 
Till he became 
Most poore: 
With thee 
O let me rise 
As larks, harmoniously, 
And sing this day thy victories: 
Then shall the fall further the flight in me. 

My tender age in sorrow did beginne 
And still with sicknesses and shame. 
Thou didst so punish sinne, 
That I became 
Most thinne. 
With thee 
Let me combine, 
And feel thy victorie: 
For, if I imp my wing on thine, 
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

George Herbert, 1593-1633

‘Man, nature and history have their solution not within themselves but within a divine kingdom that transcends them. This divine kingdom cannot be realised as a climax of human progress upon the plane of history, nor yet as a movement of mankind to an immortality that belongs to it by right. It will be realised by God’s act in “raising up” mankind and delivering it from the contradictions which neither history nor immortality can solve. Yet this divine kingdom will not be far removed from nature and history; for in it both nature and history will be “clothed upon” and fulfilled.
 
“Non eripit mortalia,
Qui regna dat caelestia”.
 
It is thus in the Resurrection of the dead that the goal of the individual and the goal of the redeemed society find their perfect coincidence. The individual cannot reach his goal except in union with those who shall share with Him in the love of God and in the Body of Christ. The traditional picture of a final Resurrection and of spirits waiting (though in a conscious and growing activity) for their bodies at the last day, tells of the truth that the perfecting of the individual is reached only in the perfecting of all. Thus the thought of my resurrection is inseparable from the thought of the resurrection of all the members of Christ’. 

from The Resurrection of Christ, 1945
by A.M. Ramsey, 1904-1988 (Archbishop of Canterbury 1961-1974)

‘There is a wonderful economy about the grace of God, and though he never fails us, yet he combines his gift of grace with a complete respect for our own freedom and responsibility.
 
That means that we must expect to find the proof of the powers of his grace not in easy effortless victories because all our difficulties and temptations melt away, but in strength for the conflict. What is asked of us is not the limp surrender of ourselves to some blind force which will work in us without our knowledge or consent, but the active vigorous response of our whole being to the grace that is given us.
 
We shan’t drift into living the new life of the man who has been buried and raised again with Christ. God’s grace isn’t given to us to save us trouble or to enable us to do without effort what in fact requires all the effort which our wills can muster; but it does ensure that his power is always available for us, and we can always rely on it.
 
But remember that if we’re to share his triumph, we must also share the method by which it was achieved. We are committed to the victory of the Cross. And that means not only that we must follow the example of his patience before we can be partakers of his resurrection, but also that God’s power is a power which is only made perfect in weakness and therefore it always involves for us, as it did for the apostles, a real trial of our faith. We can’t separate Easter from all that has gone before. The continuation of Christ’s victory in us means the continuation of Christ’s struggle in us. But never fear. “God giveth us the victory through Our Lord Jesus Christ”. We are actors in the Easter drama, and the crucified risen Lord still continues his Easter triumph in countless human souls. For “we are more than conquerors through him that loved us”’. 

from The Easter Drama, 1958, by Hugh Bishop
​(Superior of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, 1965-1974)

Easter

Break the box and shed the nard;
Stop not now to count the cost;
Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;
Reck not what the poor have lost;
Upon Christ throw all away:
Know ye, this is Easter Day.
 
Build His church and deck His shrine,
Empty though it be on earth;
Ye have kept your choicest wine--
Let it flow for heavenly mirth;
Pluck the harp and breathe the horn:
Know ye not ’tis Easter morn?
 
Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And a Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter’s robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day.
 
Beauty now for ashes wear,
Perfumes for the garb of woe,
Chaplets for dishevelled hair,
Dances for sad footsteps slow;
Open wide your hearts that they
Let in joy this Easter Day.
 
Seek God’s house in happy throng;
Crowded let His table be;
Mingle praises, prayer, and song,
Singing to the Trinity.
Henceforth let your souls always
Make each morn an Easter Day.

Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ, 1844-1889

​‘And so I saw full surely that before ever God made us, he loved us. And this love was never quenched nor ever shall be. And in this love he has done all his works, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting. In our making we had beginning, but the love in which he made us was in him from without beginning, in which love we have our beginning’.

Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416

‘The Rogation Days should be carefully kept as days of intercession for God’s blessing on the fruits of the earth. The Litany should be said before the principal Eucharist on each day, blue being the colour for these two services. The late Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Benson, in urging the better observance of these days, sanctioned special collects, and recommended the use of the Litany. In the new book of 1927 the Rogation Days are the only days on which the Litany is absolutely required.

Archbishop Benson also urged that “Where the Perambulation of Parish Bounds is still observed and suitable, I hope that it will always be with such religious services as are happily used in many places”. Unfortunately, the old processions had become associated with tin cans (both empty and full) and with much unseemliness. But in country places the people welcome a revival of the old religious processions; and the parson who omits them loses a great opportunity of touching and helping his flock. In large towns also processions become very popular.

As late as about 1675, at Wolverhampton, “the sacrist, resident prebendaries, and members of the choir, assembled at Morning Prayers on Monday and Tuesday in Rogation Week, with the charity children, bearing long poles clothed with all kinds of flowers then in season, and which were afterwards carried through the streets of the town with much solemnity, the clergy, singing men and boys, dressed in their sacred vestments, closing the procession, and chanting in a grave and appropriate melody the Canticle Benedicite omnia opera​”. The boundaries of the parish were marked at many points by Gospel trees where the Gospel was read.

Here, then, we touch hands with tradition, and the parson may easily accommodate it to his own opportunities. For the Psalms, &c., to be used he can turn to the old authorities, and will find that Psalms ciii and civ, together with the Litany, are “by law appointed”’.

from The Parson’s Handbook, 12th edition, 1932, by ​Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936

‘This is a penitential season of fasting and intercession for the fruits of the earth. The celebration of the Eucharist preceded by the Litany would seem the most suitable observance for the three days. In addition the connexion between processions and penitential seasons must not be forgotten. The more public this procession the better. In some country places the route might follow the bounds of the parish, stations being made fairly frequently by the allotments or other crops. In town parishes a convenient route varying, if desired, from year to year, might be planned with stations at suitable places.

“Stations” may take the form of very short informal services, e.g. a reading from Scripture, followed by a collect, the Lord’s Prayer, and possibly a hymn. At one of more important stations an address should be given. The proper place is before the Eucharist, but in practice the evening will be found to be the most suitable time for this Procession.

All who take part in the procession - and it should include all the congregation - will meet in Church for a few initial prayers and, if desired, a hymn. As it is extremely difficult to sing hymns in an outdoor Procession, psalms and litanies should be chosen in preference or hymns sung by a few voices with a popular refrain in which all may join. Psalms ciii, civ, cxiv, and cxv, the Lent and Advent proses in the English Hymnal, the Prayer Book Litany, and some metrical Litany will be found suitable. When the Procession returns to the Church, a hymn, collect, and blessing might terminate the service.

The most convenient order of Procession will be as follows: Verger with mace, Churchwardens with staves, Cross-bearer, Servers with lanterns on poles, Priest, Banner-bearer and the Passiontide or some very simple banner, members of the congregation in fours, Choir boys, Chanters, Choir men, Clergy in choir habit, and the remaining members of the congregation’.

from A Directory of Ceremonial: Part II, Alcuin Club Tracts XIX, 1930

  Heavy and sad the Church must go:
  Full weary are her latter days,
  And she must hush the voice of praise
  While tears of penance flow.
  And she must fast, though by her side
  The Bridegroom yet on earth doth move;
  And fear must be instead of love
  For her own children's pride.

  Yet, holy Mother! Lent is past:
  And long ago the Easter sun
  Into the middle sky hath run;--
  Wherefore this second fast?
  Mother! with us the Lord doth bide;
  Yet but a little while He stays,--
  Then for three dim and lonely days
  Why keep us from His side?
  He said we should not fast when He
  Came down to live with us below:
  Then, holy Mother! why forego
  Our ancient liberty?
  When thou wert in thy virgin prime,
  Those forty days through all the earth
  Thy heart did swell with festal mirth--
  It was thy bridal time.

  Talk not, my son, of early days:
  My precious stones were passing fair,
  My life was Sacrament and prayer,
  My unity was praise.
  These glories now are well-nigh past:
  My son! the world is waxing strong;
  The day is hot; the fight is long,
  And therefore do I fast.
  And ye are weak, and cannot bear
  Full forty days of Easter mirth:
  And nought is left unstained of earth,
  But penance, fast, and prayer.
  Oh! weary is my stay below;
  And thus with strong and earnest cry,
  As each Ascension-day glides by,
  I fain with Him would go.

  Then watch and fast, like saints of yore;
  These three new days perchance may bring
  The earlier advent of our King,
  And we shall fast no more!

Frederick Faber, Cong. Orat., 1814-1863

6th Century, translated by ​Mgr Ronald Knox, 1888-1957

Surely sometimes it seems a single word
Will make the meaning of a summer’s day;
As lovers, separate, have dreamed they heard
The wind, the waves, the wood, with many a bird,
Tell what the stars have spelt, the loved one’s name,
To flash whose message all the East would flame,
And all the West glow gold when evening came.

Now that the Fast of Lent hath passed away,
And shines so royally the noonday sun,
Nature’s green silences all seem to pray,
As Nature’s morning voices all have sung
One Alleluia to the Risen Lord.

The copse mad-musical, the acres broad,
Seem as though they, in separate sort, adored,
With song and silence, Him Who thought them meet
To spread green carpets for His Sacred Feet,
Or cast their shade to be His prayer’s retreat.

Yea, for the world were reft of rhyme and tune,
There were no meaning in its blossoming
But for the endless Life, the Heavenly Spring,
May were a mockery then, and ample June
Doomed to grim winter. So they well may sing
Loud to their Lord, Who now comes triumphing,
Glad Alleluias through the golden noon.

Father Andrew SDC, 1869-1946

‘Easter is concerned with something unimaginable. Initially, the event of Easter comes to us solely through the word, not through the senses. So it is all the more important for us to be won over by the immensity of this word. Because, however, we can think only by employing sense images, the faith of the Church has always translated the Easter message into symbols that point to things the word cannot express. The symbol of light (including the fire) plays a special part; the praise of the Paschal candle - a symbol of life in the midst of the darkened church - is actually praise of him who proved victor over death. Thus the event of long ago is translated into our present time: where light conquers darkness, something of the Resurrection takes place. The blessing of water focuses on another element of creation, used as a symbol of the Resurrection: water can be a threat, a weapon of death. But living spring water means fruitfulness, building oases of life in the middle of the desert. Then there is a third symbol of a very different kind: the sung Alleluia, the solemn singing of the Paschal liturgy, shows that the human voice, as well as crying, groaning, lamenting, speaking, can also sing. Moreover, the fact that man is able to summon the voices of creation and transform them into harmony - does this not give us a marvellous intimation of the transformation that we, too, with creation, can undergo?’

​Pope Benedict XVI

‘Today the Crucified tells us: “I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for ever more. And I hold the keys of death and of hell”. By the free will of his great love, he laid down his life for us, and now he takes it again for ever. It is not indeed as though that life is just a cancelling or reversing of the death. He lives because he died. He lives, not in spite of death but because of it; for the death is love’s extremest measure. For ever he bears the scars of wounds wherewith he was wounded in the house of his friends. Our great High Priest is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. As he was God from everlasting, so he is Man for evermore. But by his death he hath destroyed the power of death and drawn its sting; and by his rising again has restored us to everlasting life.

Life, not death, is now written as the end of human history. But is that all? Must we wait till the end to know that our salvation is made sure? Is he alone in his great deliverance and victory? Is he as one who has escaped by night from a besieged city and got away in safety, leaving his companions unhelped by his escape, most closely beset, maybe, since he has broken through and left them? Are all the gains here on earth as transitory and insecure as ever? Must we wait until we leave this world before we know anything of the power of his endless life? 

No so. Because Christ is risen, sin and death can make no final claim to rule this world. Men may yield themselves to the great false gods of pride and greed and hate. They may seek to enthrone themselves above God and to despise his love and justice and mercy and trample the common life of his children beneath the tyranny of self-idolising power; but in very truth the kingdoms that they thus construct are transient and unsubstantial. They are under doom, for the God who rules the earth is the Father who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead - Jesus in whom love has gained the victory over all the powers of death and hell. There is a life here which cannot be touched by death and decay and in each of us there is that which escapes the doom of transiency and sin’s triumph. For consider the Church. Christ has pledged that it shall not fail or die. It is the Body of the risen Christ. Whether men attack it from without or betray it from within, the Church, in its inner life, its essential being, is the endless Life of Christ, perpetuated upon earth. It cannot die, whatever else passes and disappears; for it lives, not by the contrivance or the pathetic aspirations of men, but by the power of him who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead. For within, from the hidden treasury of our glorious Lord, there are dispensed the grace and truth which by his death and resurrection he has unlocked to be not only the reward of high heaven, but the power to enlighten, strengthen, cleanse, renew, and feed our poor human nature while still we are pilgrims to the City of God’.

from The Easter Message, broadcast on Easter Day, 1939, by Edward Keble Talbot CR, 1877-1949
(Superior of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, 1922-1940)

V. Let us bless the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;
R. Let us praise and exalt him for ever.

BLESSING and honour and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne
and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty;
Just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints;
All glorious thy gifts, thou Spirit of life.
Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might
be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

O GIVE thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious; And his mercy endureth for ever.
Who hath loved us from all eternity; For his mercy endureth for ever.
And remembered us when we were in trouble; For his mercy endureth for ever.
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven; For his mercy endureth for ever.
And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; For his mercy endureth for ever.
Who by his cross and passion hath redeemed the world; For his mercy endureth for ever.
And hath washed us from our sins in his own blood; For his mercy endureth for ever.
Who on the third day rose from the dead; For his mercy endureth for ever.
And hath given us the victory; For his mercy endureth for ever.
Who ascended up on high; For his mercy endureth for ever.
And opened wide for us the everlasting doors; For his mercy endureth for ever.
Who sitteth on the right hand of God; For his mercy endureth for ever.
And ever liveth to make intercession for us; For his mercy endureth for ever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

For the gift of his Spirit; Blessed be Christ.
For the Catholic Church; Blessed be Christ.
For the means of grace; Blessed be Christ.
For the hope of glory; Blessed be Christ.
For the triumphs of his gospel; Blessed be Christ.
For the lives of his saints; Blessed be Christ.
In joy and in sorrow; Blessed be Christ.
In life and in death; Blessed be Christ.
Now and unto the end of the ages; Blessed be Christ.

(Here may be added thanksgivings for particular mercies,
and at their end all shall say together the General Thanksgiving)

BLESSING and honour and thanksgiving and praise more than we can utter,
more than we can conceive, be unto thee, O most adorable Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by all angels, all men, all creatures, for ever and ever.
​Amen and Amen.

from Cambridge Offices and Orisons, 1949
arranged by Eric Milner-White and BTD Smith

‘To see the resurrection as no more than a spiritual experience is to abandon the biblical understanding and to pronounce a decree absolute between spirit and matter. Such an attitude conflicts both with the biblical teaching and, being based on an outdated positivism, with the modern scientific understanding of man as a psychosomatic unity.

St Paul says, “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain”. The resurrection is at the heart of the apostolic preaching, and our faith in the gospel which it proclaims calls us not to examine it in the light of the idea of this or any subsequent century but to allow it to judge us that we may see creation and ourselves in the light of God’s revelation.

In a sense, we experience two lives between our baptism and our death, two lives, the one in Christ, the other in Adam. We experience both bodily in terms of our existence as human beings, not one spiritual or mental and the other physical. The one is given by physical birth - that in Adam. The other is given by sacramental birth - that in Christ. The one fulfils and transcends the other. In our physical death we experience the natural end of our life in Adam, but our sacramental life in Christ continues. Our physical body is returned to the created universe from which it came and of which it has always been part. But it returns to a created universe which has been redeemed in Christ in his resurrection, of which by virtue of our sacramental life we shall partake.

The challenge of the resurrection is not new. Men and women have, throughout the ages, found it difficult and too demanding to live truly as human beings, and have been tempted to lapse into either an angelism which sees the spiritual as an escape from the material or into a materialism which in the long run has no better message than “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”. The resurrection of Christ calls us to accept the challenge so to live that we may be fulfilled in the whole of our human nature in and for God’.

Mgr Graham Leonard, 1921-2010

Done is a battell on the dragon blak,
Our campioun Chryst confountet hes his force;
The yettis of hell ar brokin with a crak,
The signe triumphall rasit is of the croce,
The divillis trymmillis with hiddous voce,
The saulis ar borrowit and to the blis can go,
Chryst with his blud our ransonis dois indoce:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.
 
Dungin is the deidly dragon Lucifer,
The crewall serpent with the mortall stang;
The auld kene tegir with his teith on char,
Quhilk in a wait hes lyne for us so lang,
Thinking to grip us in his clows strang;
The mercifull Lord wald nochrt that it wer so,
He maid him for to felye of that fang:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.
 
He for our saik that sufferit to be slane,
And lyk a lamb in sacrifice wes dicht,
Is lyk a lyone rissin up againe,
And as gyane raxit him on hicht;
Sprungin is Aurora radius and bricht,
On loft is gone the glorius Appollo,
The blisfull day depairtit fro the nicht:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.
 
The grit victour agane is rissin on hicht,
That for our querrell to the deth wes woundit;
The sone that wox all paill now schynis bricht,
And dirknes clerit, our fayth is now refoundit;
The knell of mercy fra the hevin is soundit,
The Christin ar deliverit of thair wo,
The Jowis and thair errour ar confoundit:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.
 
The fo is chasit, the battell is done ceis,
The presone brokin, the jevllouris fleir and flemit;
The weir is gon, confermit is the peis,
The fetteris lowsit and the dungeoun temit,
The ransoun maid, the presoneris redemit;
The feild is win, ourcumin is the fo,
Dispulit of the tresur that he yemit:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

William Dunbar, ca.1465-1520

campioun | champion          yettis | gates          trymillis | tremble          borrowit | ransomed
indoce | endorse          Dungin | struck down          on char | ajar          felye of that fang | come short of that booty
dicht | made ready          raxit him | raised himself          On loft | aloft          done ceis | made to cease
jevellouris fleit and flemit | gaolers affrighted and put to fright          temit | emptied          yemit | kept