EASTER PROCLAMATION

Oh Felix Culpa

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.
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.

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,
lending them to grace,
and joining them to his holy ones.

This is the night
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!
Exultet - PART III

MAUNDY THURSDAY + THE LORD'S PASSOVER

PASSOVER

                                                                         Mandatum

 And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's passover.
Exodus 12:11

POEMS II

                                                                II

                                              I've been in love so long

                                              With what I cannot tell

                                              Yet I will contrive a song

                                              For the intangible-

                                              That has no mold or shape

                                              From which there is no escape

                                              This love a moment known

                                              And in a moment gone

                                              Is like the happy doe

                                              That keeps it's perfect laws

                                               Between the tiger's paws

                                               And vindicates its cause.

POEMS I

                                             

                                              For far the year has waned
                                              The sea hawk and the piper
                                              flee the spring built nest.


                                              The sea a shade more gray
                                               Belies a degree more cold

                                           
                                               Love's fall is born.

                                               Now in the earth's descent
                                               The earth and sea like life itself regain
                                               A former pristine sense.
                                             
                                              Washed clean by a Northeast wind.

DIMANCHE DES RAMEAUX

"Ride on ride on in majesty! Hark all the tribes hosanna cry; Thy humble beast pursues his road with palms and scattered garments strowed."