Christ My Hope is Risen: A Reflection on the Sequence of Easter Sunday
There is an old Latin adage which goes: lex orandi, lex credendi, meaning essentially, as we pray, so we believe. Or in other words, prayer shapes our belief - the liturgy forms us. In monastic life, we are steeped in the liturgy, and over time, the liturgy begins to shape our way of life, our way of believing, our patterns of thought. Instead of songs once heard on the radio, it becomes texts from the liturgy, the psalms, and hymns that we sing which flow unconsciously through the mind.
The Victimae Paschali Laudes is the Sequence for Easter Sunday, at the morning Mass. It is a beautiful chant and every year I find the words to it running through my head long after Easter has come and gone. The words become a prayer and a meditation as they return over and over again.
You can listen to a recording of our Easter Sequence here:
Victimae paschali laudes
immolent Christiani
Christians, to the Paschal Victim
Offer your thankful praises!
On Easter Sunday, the greatest feast of the liturgical year, we celebrate the Paschal Victory of Christ who has truly risen from the dead. Christ offered himself, immolated himself upon the cross for our redemption. He has risen now in glory, and our response is to praise and glorify him for his great victory. It is interesting how the sequence invites us to do this though - we are called to offer, to literally sacrifice or immolate, our praises to him.
But what does it mean to sacrifice praises?
We make a sacrifice of praise, first of all, by entering into the liturgy. In the liturgy, we offer the most perfect sacrifice of Christ back to the Father. We are members of Christ and offer ourselves to the Father along with him.
But next, our sacrifice of praise consists in our life. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” (Rom 12:1) I offer a sacrifice of praise by glorifying God by my life, by offering him praise and thanksgiving at every moment of my life - when things are going well, as well as when they aren’t. The sunrise is beautiful this morning - “I praise you, Lord.” I take my eyes off the soup for two seconds and the whole thing burns – “I praise you, Lord.” God created us to praise and glorify him, not because he is an egomaniac, but because he is goodness and beauty itself. Enjoyment and praise are flip sides of the same coin - if you truly are enjoying a symphony, part of that experience is the feeling of praise that wells up deep from within: “This is beautiful.” So we too, glorify and praise God as we experience his goodness.
Agnus redemit oves
Christus innocens patri
reconciliavit peccatores
A lamb the sheep redeems;
Christ, who only is sinless,
Reconciles sinners to the Father.
Christ, who was God from all eternity, has made himself to be the innocent lamb who redeems the sheep. He has made himself like us, taken our nature upon himself, in order to save us. From the heights of heaven, he could have deigned to grant remission of our sins, to forgive our offenses, but that was not enough for so loving a redeemer. “O happy fault!” as the Easter Exultet proclaims. He made himself to be man so that, through him, man might be united to God. How great, how marvelous a love! That God, so infinitely above us, would love us broken creatures so much that he would become one of us, and although innocent, suffer on behalf of our sins, so that we might be reconciled to God - we could never meditate enough on this mystery of love.
Mors et vita duello
conflixere mirando:
dux vitae mortuus
regnat vivus
Death and life have contended
in that combat stupendous:
The Prince of life, who died,
reigns immortal.
Christ has truly become man, has truly assumed our nature, and in doing so, has redeemed it. Death and life contended, but how could death ever hope to win when fighting against Life himself? When Christ who is life took to himself a human nature, he conquered sin and death in our nature and won for us redemption and everlasting life. Christ’s victory is our victory, we enter into “that combat stupendous” assured that Christ has already won, and all that remains is for us to allow that victory to be realized in us.
Dic nobis, Maria,
quid vidisti in via?
Speak, Mary, declaring
What you saw, wayfaring.
Almost two thousand years later, Mary speaks to us now just as she did to the apostles on that first Easter morning. She has just encountered the living Lord, and runs to tell the good news. Imagine meeting her along the road. She runs excitedly - something must have happened - and you stop her and ask: “Tell us, Mary, what did you see along the way?”
Listen as she tells you, and allow the joy and wonder to fill you as you hear this incredible news:
Sepulcrum Christi viventis,
gloriam vidi resurgentis.
Angelicos testes,
sudarium et vestes
Surrexit Christus spes mea:
praecedet suos in Galilaeam.
“The tomb of Christ, who is living,
The glory of Jesus’ resurrection;
Bright angels attesting,
The shroud and napkin resting,
Yes, Christ my hope is arisen;
To Galilee he goes before you.”
Mary has been to the tomb where Jesus was laid, and found it empty. She fears that the body of her beloved Master has been stolen. But angels promise her that he is risen, and the graveclothes and empty tomb attest to their message. The Lord himself appears to her, and she beholds his glory. Indeed, “Christ my hope is arisen” - and Mary becomes the first to proclaim the Gospel as she runs to tell the apostles, meriting her the title of “Apostle to the Apostles.” This encounter with the living Lord is always an overflowing grace: we are transformed, and the effects of that transformation radiate out from us, proclaiming to others the good news that Jesus is truly alive, today as he was on that first Easter Morning. May our own encounter with the Lord of Glory bear fruit like Mary’s did!
Scimus Christum surrexisse
a mortuis vere:
tu nobis, victor Rex,
miserere.
Amen. Alleluia!
Christ indeed from death is risen,
our new life obtaining.
Have mercy, victor King,
ever reigning!
Amen. Alleluia!
We know that Christ has truly risen from the dead, taking our human nature with him up into the heights of heaven. Where he has gone, we hope to follow after. The phrase “our new life obtaining” is not actually present in the Latin text of the sequence, but it is nonetheless an appropriate addition.
The promise of a future release from sickness, pain, sorrow and death gives hope in the midst of suffering. There is more to our existence, we were made for more, and we can trust that someday, this will end. But while we must wait until heaven to receive glorified bodies, free from pain and death, sickness and sorrow, the new life made possible for us by the Resurrection begins here and now - the participation in the life of God by grace. Freedom from sin is the experience of the resurrection.
Our Lenten penances have been meant to bring us to this moment at Easter. By disciplining our passions by prayer and fasting, we have hopefully by God’s grace been freed from some of our sinful habits and behaviors. Now in Easter joy, we enjoy the freedom to feast and partake of the good things of God in a way that glorifies and praises him. (Here’s a hint: stuffing your face with chocolate until you are sick after giving it up for Lent is not how to glorify God in freedom!)
May we ever more, day by day, enter into the glory of the Resurrection as we grow deeper in the life of God, experiencing the freedom and grace that Jesus Christ has merited for us by his glorious passion, death, and resurrection!
