{"id":2730,"date":"2010-04-04T08:44:26","date_gmt":"2010-04-04T08:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2010\/04\/the-sunday-of-the-pasch-in-the\/"},"modified":"2010-04-04T08:44:26","modified_gmt":"2010-04-04T08:44:26","slug":"the-sunday-of-the-pasch-in-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2010\/04\/the-sunday-of-the-pasch-in-the\/","title":{"rendered":"Holy Pascha"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"01_nolim.jpg\"<\/a>
\nThe Vigil<\/strong>
\nChrist is risen!
\nLast night, as we kept the great and solemn vigil, “the mother of all vigils,”
\nthe brightest Eucharist of the year,
\nthe Word of God, again and again,
\nstruck our ears, pierced our hearts,
\ncame to flower in psalms and canticles on our lips.
\nA procession passed before our eyes!
\nAbraham and Isaac were there;
\nMoses, Aaron, and Miriam were there, with all the children of Israel;
\nIsaiah, Baruch, and Ezekiel were there;
\nPaul was there, Paul of the risen Christ, Paul of the dazzling Christ.
\nAnd so were we led to the pure, the undiluted sound of Pascha.
\nThe entire vigil dissolved into “the one first note of joy
\nwhich nothing and no one can imitate,” the alleluia.
\nThe Alleluia<\/strong>
\nDame Aemiliana Löhr’s classic description of the Paschal Alleluia
\nremains the best of all:
\n“It rose with a slow movement;
\nit rose above the grave of Adam,
\nand it had the blood of Christ on it’s wings.”
\nThe alleluia itself, for all its beauty, blossomed into something else.
\nIt set the tone for Psalm 117, the paschal psalm par excellence,
\nthe psalm that is, from beginning to end a cry of Eucharist:
\n“Confess unto the Lord for he is good:
\nunto ages unending is his mercy” (Ps 117:1).
\nPsalm 117<\/strong>
\nToday’s liturgy continues the psalm intoned last night.
\n(It’s almost as if we never went to bed.)
\nThe twenty-fourth verse becomes our refrain:
\n“Haec dies quam fecit Dominus:
\nexsultemus, et laetemur in ea.”
\n“This is the day which the Lord has made;
\nlet us rejoice and be glad therein” (Ps 117:24).
\nPsalm 117 is the last of the six psalms of praise known as the Hallel<\/em>
\nsung in the liturgy of the Temple
\nat Passover, at Pentecost, and on the other high feasts.
\nJubilation<\/strong>
\nIn the Jewish ear, in the Jewish mouth,
\nPsalm 117 is a riot of jubilation;
\nit celebrates the triumph of the Messiah, the Anointed, the Christ.
\nThe voice of the warrior-king makes itself heard above all others:
\n“I thank Thee,
\n(I eucharistify<\/em> Thee)
\nthat Thou hast answered me and hast become my salvation.
\nThe stone which the builders rejected
\nhas become the head of the corner.
\nThis is the Lord’s doing;
\nit is marvelous in our eyes” (Ps 117:21-23).
\nThe Triumph of the Warrior-King<\/strong>
\nIn the Christian ear, Psalm 117 is the voice of Jesus,
\nthe warrior-king come back from the stupendous struggle with death,
\ncome back from the sixth day battle fought with outstretched hands,
\ncome back from the harrowing of Hades.
\nIt is the sound of Eucharist.
\nThis thing done by God,
\nthe victory of His Christ,
\nmakes a today unlike every other day,
\na day forever to be remembered
\nWe hear the Haec dies<\/em> more intensely than we sing it,
\nand in it recognize, like Mary at the tomb,
\nthe voice of our Christ, our “Victor Rex.”
\nA few moments ago, we sang the Haec dies<\/em>
\nin response to Peter’s confession of the crucified and risen Jesus.
\n“They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree;
\nbut God raised Him on the third day and made Him manifest;
\nnot to all the people, but to us who were chosen by God as His witnesses,
\nwho ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead” (Ac 10:39-41).
\nPeter’s “third day” (Ac 10:39)
\nis “the day the Lord has made” (Ps 117:24);
\nthe third day becomes the first day,
\nthe day of the creation of the light (Gen 1:3).
\nIt becomes the mysterious eighth day,
\nthe beginning of the new creation
\nthat has for light and for lamp the glory of God and the Lamb (Rev 21:22).
\nFor us, this means,
\nthat in our celebration of the Most Holy Sacrifice today,
\nin our obedience to the commandment of the Lord,
\n“Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19),
\nwe pass all together into the “Day of the Lord” (Rev 1:10).
\nThe third day, the first day, and the eighth day
\nare mysteriously and simultaneously made present.
\nIt is true: the then” of Christ has become our “now,”
\nand our “now:” passes over into His “then.”
\n“Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus:
\nquoniam in saeculum misericordia eius.”
\n“Confess unto the Lord for He is good:
\nunto ages unending is His mercy” (Ps 117:1).
\nTo confess means to praise, to bless, to offer thanks.
\nThe Eucharist is Christ’s great confession of the goodness of the Lord;
\nthe Eucharist is our memorial confession of His mercy.
\nThe Eucharist is the goodness of the Lord
\ngiven for all in the Divine Bread and in the Sacred Chalice.
\nThe Eucharist is the taste of mercy in the mouth,
\nthe sweetness of victory over death, leaving no bitterness,
\nsatisfying, invigorating, making all things new (Rev 21:5).
\nChrist is risen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Vigil Christ is risen! Last night, as we kept the great and solemn vigil, “the mother of all vigils,” the brightest Eucharist of the year, the Word of God, again and again, struck our ears, pierced our hearts, came to flower in psalms and canticles on our lips. A procession passed before our eyes! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sacred-paschal-triduum-2010"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-I2","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}