REGINA CAELI

From Easter till Pentecost, that is, during Paschaltide, we say or sing the Regina Caeli instead of the Angelus, and instead of the other Marian anthems, such as the Salve Regina.

This is the Church's Easter hymn to Mary.

This hymn goes back so far in time that we don't know exactly how it came about.  The Vatican's oldest musical score for it is dated around the year 1171.

If we really understood the intimate link between Mother and Son, we would not doubt for a moment that she who "merited to bear" Him in her womb; she who brought Him into this world, cared for Him, nursed Him, protected Him, taught Him, worried over Him, wept for Him, suffered for Him - would not also be a joyful witness of His resurrection!

In the Regina Caeli, there is no talk of "this valley of tears."  Not now.  We are too joyful to think of that for now.  Still, we haven't lost all sense, and we ask her "to pray for us," for even in joy we are mindful we are not in heaven yet.

He is risen - but as He said He would.  Our Lord's suffering, death and resurrection were all His doing.  He chose to undergo all that; allowed others to take His life.  He laid it down, but He, too, picked it up again.  The Resurrection was not a surprise to Jesus!  It was all part of the plan!  Our God is the God of Life.

The tomb could not hold Him for more than three days.  She bore Him in her womb for nine months.  More than that, she kept Him in her mind and heart day and night all her earthly life.

Now, she is Queen of Heaven, Regina Caeli.  She beholds Him for all eternity in all His glory, which she, too, shares.  From her throne in heaven, she is our greatest intercessor.  Ora pro nobis Deum!  Alleluia!

Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia:
For He whom you merited to bear, alleluia,
Has risen, as He said, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.

 

VIDI AQUAM

On any given Sunday, at the main Mass, the celebrant can bless the congregation with holy water.  Water, as we know, is a symbol of spiritual purification.  It reminds us of our baptism, where we were first cleansed of sin.  That cleansing water is actually the blood of Christ poured for us, which we are about to experience once again in the Mass that follows this sprinkling rite.

This blessing is thus an excellent preparation for Mass.  It reminds us of what takes place at Mass – our cleansing through the blood of Christ.

Most Sundays of the year, we call this blessing the Asperges, from the opening word of the chant that accompanies the ritual.  “Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo et mundabor.”  “Thou wilt sprinkle me, Lord, with hyssop and I will be cleansed.”

But in Easter Time, we sing a different chant.  It is called the Vidi Aquam, again from the first lines which mean “I saw water.”  Let’s look at the words :

Vidi aquam egredientem de templo (I saw water coming forth from the temple).  This is a vision seen by the Prophet Ezekiel in chapter 47 of his book.  This water started slow (ankle-deep) till it became so deep no man could cross it.  These waters became the source of immense life; plant life and all kinds of fish.  Plants that never die and fruits that never fail.  This vision is prophetic of the abundant, eternal, spiritual life that is available to us through the blood and water that flowed from the side of Christ while He hung on the cross.  His body is the true temple of God, for He Himself is God, housed in a human body.

A latere dextro : alleluia! (From the right side : Alleluia!) In Ezekiel’s vision, the water flows from the right side of the temple.   The piercing of Christ’s side is something we learn from the Gospel of John, and he does not indicate whether the left or the right side, but tradition says the right side.  It doesn’t matter; the Lord was pierced on one or the other side.  A powerful detail : John says that the soldier “opened” the Lord’s side.  Not merely pierced, stabbed, punctured – but opened.  Like a door; a door that leads us to another world.  In a sense, His opened heart becomes the door by which we enter into heaven.  So in joy we respond : alleluia!

Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista salvi facti sunt et dicent : alleluia! (And all those to whom this water came were saved and shall say : alleluia!)  In Ezekiel’s vision, the flowing water made abundant life spring up wherever it went.  Think of the history of the Church.  Think how God took weak men and made them courageous Apostles, suffering death for Christ.  Think of the martyrs, the saints, the missionaries.  The Church has become a huge tree bearing much fruit, sheltering millions of souls.  Alleluia!

THE EASTER SEQUENCE

At Easter and during the Octave, we add a hymn to the Mass, said or sung just before the Gospel. A hymn before the Gospel is called a sequence.  The sequence for Easter is known by its Latin first lines : Victimae Paschali Laudes.

Let's have a look at the words and their meanings.

Victimae paschali laudes immolent Christiani (Let Christians offer up praises as a sacrifice to the Paschal victim).  Christ is the victim, like the lamb at Passover in Exodus 12, whose blood saved the Hebrews from the Angel of Death.  The Old Testament Passover gives way to a perfect one, the sacrifice of Jesus.  But Christians must also sacrifice themselves to One who sacrificed Himself for them.  Our response to the One who gave us His all is to give Him our all.  Our own sacrifice for love of Him is the greatest praise we can give Him.  This kind of praise is not empty; not mere words.  (Matthew 15:8)  This we do in the best and most perfect way in the Mass, where bread and wine, representing our self-sacrifice, are called "haec sancta sacrificia illibata," "these holy, unblemished sacrifices."  In Mass, our sacrifice is united with the Sacrifice that truly counts.  His sacrifice will not have its full effect on us until we return sacrifice for sacrifice.  In fact, it is His sacrifice that gives us the grace to want to offer Him our lives, our works and our sufferings as our gifts to Him.

Agnus redemit oves (The lamb redeems the sheep).  Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd, but what makes Him good is that He lays down His life for the sheep (John 10:11).  Thus, our Shepherd is also a lamb, a lamb that is sacrificed so that the sheep will be defended against the wolf who comes to destroy the sheep.

Christus innocens Patri reconciliavit peccatores (The innocent Christ reconciles sinners to the Father).  The Old Testament lamb of sacrifice had to be spotless, without defect.  All that was merely physical purity.  But, in Christ, the perfectly sinless dies for the salvation of the sinful! 

Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando (Death and life contended in a wondrous battle).  The real battle on Good Friday was not just between a Messiah and His natural enemies.  It was a cosmic battle between Good and Evil, Life and Death; between God who is all Good, and the devil who is behind the kingdom of sin and death.  Who will win?  Death?  And man will never see salvation?  Or Life?

Dux vitae mortuus regnat vivus (The Prince of Life, dead, reigns alive).  And the winner is : Life!  But here is the paradox.  He alone can lay claim to being the Prince of Life, meaning the One able to have dominion over life itself, and the power to bestow life on whomever He wishes, precisely because He died and rose again!  Both His dying and His rising were His doing alone.  "I lay down my life and I take it up again." (John 10:17)  No one took His life away; He gave it up of His own accord.  And He took it up again.  He is truly is the Lord over life itself.  The one who can best say he has power over something is he who can give it up and take it back again.

Dic nobis Maria, quid vidisti in via? (Tell us Mary, what did you see on the way?)  And now we turn to a witness.  The Mary spoken of here is Mary Magdalene, not the Blessed Mother.  Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb, and then Jesus Himself.   She answers the question in the next line :

Sepulcrum Christi viventis, et gloriam vidi resurgentis (I saw the tomb of the living Christ, and the glory of His rising).  She saw a tomb, but it was empty, because the former occupant she now sees alive.  But she also saw the glory of His rising, meaning, the glory of a dead man raised to life.  This glory prevented her at first from recognizing Him.  It is the same Lord, but something is different about Him now.  It is His glorified body.

Angelicos testes, sudarium et vestes (The angels attest, and the napkin and clothing).  Mary herself had witnesses, the angels and the burial cloths of Jesus laid aside.  The body was here; here are the clothes which wrapped it.  Why take the body, and not the shroud?  Unless, He has risen and has no need of burial clothing anymore!

Surrexit Christus spes mea (Christ my hope has risen).  Christ has risen from the dead, but we are not there yet.  We still have to die, and then rise.  But had Christ not done this before us, how can we expect to follow?  Thus, His resurrection gives us hope.  As St. Paul said, "If Christ had not risen from the dead, our faith is useless." (1 Corinthians 15:14)

Praecedet vos in Galilaeam (He goes before you to Galilee).  The Apostles, with the exception of Judas, were Galileans. So after the Lord had died and risen again, they returned to their native place.  It was also the homeland of Jesus, after His birth in Bethlehem in Judea.  Here is where the Lord started His ministry in Israel; here He will send His Apostles to the ends of the world.  He goes before us; we do not blaze trails alone.  The Lord goes before us, leading the way.  This verse already opens the door to the permanent, missionary call of the Church.  Easter is not just for our own benefit.  We are to go out to all nations and tell them the Good News.

Scimus Christum surrexisse, a mortuis vere (We know that Christ is truly risen from the dead).  This is the core of the Christian message.  If Christ had died and remained dead, death would have won.  But Christ has won the battle, and so can we if we are united with Him.  Thus, Easter has to be lived, not just believed.  In fact, it is not saving faith until it is lived.  We must live the new life, and die to the old.  We are only united with Jesus if we do what He commands us. (Matthew 7:21)

Tu nobis victor Rex miserere (To us, victor King, have mercy). We turn now and address the Lord Himself.  We turn from singing about Him, to speaking to Him, and we ask for His mercy.  It is really a plea.  We address Him as the King who won; would He please, in His mercy, give us the grace to win as He did?

Amen. Alleluia.  "So be it."  But also the cry of Easter joy - Alleluia!.  The firmness of our prayer (Amen) is followed by joy that He who rose from the dead will give the grace of resurrection to those who do not abandon Him.

EASTER AND BAPTISM

 

Baptism of a child in the Ancient Church

from the catacombs of St Callistus in Rome

When Jesus rose from the dead, He brought humanity to a new kind of life, higher than even that enjoyed by Adam and Eve before they fell in sin.  This new kind of life is shown in the Lord’s glorified body after the resurrection : agile, bright, able to walk through barriers, incapable of suffering, and yet a human body which talks, walks and even eats (barbequed fish!).

These are the physical manifestations of a human soul perfectly united with God.  Through His grace, we can become that.  We can share in His divine glory, just as He shared in our broken humanity.

 

So how is this done?  The beginning is baptism.  Baptism is the application of Christ’s hard-won salvation, paid for by His blood, on the individual soul.  “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” (John 3:5)  “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” (Mark 16:16)  And the Lord commanded His Apostles to go out and teach and baptize the whole world (Matthew 28:19-20).

Since baptism and all the sacraments, for that matter, flow from the saving acts of Christ suffering, dying and rising again, Easter is the time par excellence for celebrating this sacrament.  In the early Church, adult converts (catechumens) were baptized at the Easter Vigil and given white garments (albs, from the Latin word for “white,” albus), which they wore all week long!  They came to Mass every day during the Octave, to be further grounded in the faith they just entered. 

That is why the Masses during the Octave have a lot of references to baptism.  It is the Church’s way of reinforcing the faith of the newly-baptized, and ours as well.

SOME EXAMPLES

Collect from Easter Tuesday

The prayer speaks of "new offspring" of the Church.  The Church has children who are born spiritually into the family of God.  These are the ones baptized at Easter.  They became the adopted children of God through the "sacrament which they have received by faith."

Collect from Easter Thursday

The prayer speaks of those "born again of water in baptism."  But it already points us to Pentecost, which reverses the curse of Babel when humanity was further divided through the multiplication of languages so that men couldn't understand each other.  The faith unites us, who are different in race and language.

EASTER OCTAVE AND PASCHALTIDE

Easter isn’t over starting the day after. As a matter of fact, the Church celebrates Easter all the way to Pentecost. That’s fifty days!

 

This period is called....

PASCHAL TIME

The fifty days from Easter Sunday till Pentecost Sunday are called Paschal Time, or Paschaltide. Paschal, as explained earlier, means Easter.

During Paschaltide, the Regina Caeli replaces the Angelus.

The Vidi Aquam replaces the Asperges Me.

 

The Paschal Candle burns in the sanctuary at Masses till Ascension Thursday.

At Benediction, an Alleluia is added to the versicle “Panem de caelo praestitisti eis” and response.

At Sunday Mass, instead of a Gradual and an Alleluia, there are two Alleluias and no Gradual.

 

EASTER OCTAVE

 

But there’s a second way the Church celebrates Easter and that is the eight day period beginning with Easter Sunday. That period is called the Octave, from the Latin word for “eight.”

The Octave is truly an extension of Easter Sunday. During those eight days, we are, in a sense, still in Easter Sunday, though it be a Tuesday or a Friday or what have you.

To express this liturgical and spiritual reality, no other feast or commemoration is allowed during the Octave.

The Gloria and the Easter Sequence before the Gospel (Victimae Paschali Laudes) are said every day of the Octave, just as on Easter Sunday.

 

In the Masses of the Octave, there is a generous addition of Alleluias in the orations; at the Introit, two or three Alleluias; in the offertory verse and communion verse, one or two.

At the dismissal, a double Alleluia is added to "Ite, missa est" till the next Sunday exclusive.

 

WHY EIGHT?

 

We remember that the work of the Old Creation, the one damaged by Original Sin, took six days of activity followed by a day of rest - seven days total.

 

So the number eight represents something new.  Something beyond the seven days.

 

This New Creation is the work of Christ.  He not only repaired the damage done to the Old Creation by Original Sin; He even elevated the Old Creation to something better. 

 

In other words, when Christ saved us by dying and rising, He didn't bring us back to the way things were before Adam and Eve sinned; He brought us to something even better which Adam and Eve didn't have before they sinned.  Eternal Life!

 

It's like the story of the Prodigal Son.  His life was better after he repented and came back to his father.  Before he sinned, he was a son, which was pretty good in itself.  After his return, the father clothed him in finer clothes and put on a great banquet for him.  Even better.

 

So the eighth day represents for us "going beyond the seven," "going beyond the natural creation" and putting our first foot into the New Creation, the new order that opens up into eternity.

 

That is why we can never get enough of Alleluia.  And why Easter doesn't end the Monday after.

 

In fact, the mystery of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus happens every day.  Until all will come to perfect completion at the end of this old world and the dawn of eternity.

PASCHA

For quite a number of devout Catholics, the word "paschal" is still a mystery to them.

The short answer is that "paschal" refers to Easter.  Whenever you see "paschal," think of Easter.

THE JEWISH PASSOVER

The origin of the word "paschal" is found in the Jewish Passover.  If you remember the story from the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, God wanted to free the Hebrews from slavery under the Egyptians.  After trying all sorts of ways to convince Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go, God resorted to the ultimate plague or punishment - the death of the first born male in each family in Egypt.

In order to save the Hebrew males, God instructed them through Moses to sacrifice a lamb, brush its blood on the door posts of each Hebrew home, and the Angel of Death would, on seeing the blood, pass over that house, sparing that family from the death of the first born son.

In Hebrew, this event was called pesach.  In Greek and Latin, pesach became pascha.

The Jewish Passover, of course, for us Christians, was an early glimpse into the real salvation coming later in the future, when the blood of the Lord Jesus would save all repentant sinners.

MANY THINGS CAN BE CALLED PASCHAL

The Easter - or Paschal - Fire lit just before the Easter Vigil

The Easter - or Paschal - Candle, symbolizing Christ our Light, risen from the darkness of death

We can also speak of the Paschal Mystery (the mystery of Christ's rising from the dead); the Paschal Lamb (Jesus was the true Lamb of God, sacrificed, but risen from the dead); the Paschal Triduum (three days, including Holy Thursday and Good Friday, but aimed at the final chapter - Easter!); the Paschal Feast (Easter); Paschal Tide (the time after Easter ending the day before Trinity Sunday) and so on.

We can even speak of Christ as our pascha, as we do in this verse.  It means that Christ is our Passover victim.

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN BAPTIZED WITH THE NAME PASCHAL

Saint Paschal Baylon was a Franciscan, very devoted to the Blessed Sacrament.

Two popes were named Paschal, the first being declared a saint.

In Spanish, the name Paschal is Pascual.

THE SPANISH PASCUA

In some countries, like Spain, pascha (in Spanish pascua) was applied to four great events in the Christian faith : the birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the Epiphany and the sending of the Holy Ghost.

The birth of Christ was called pascua de navidad (the pasch of the birth), or pascua navideña.

The resurrection : pascua florida (the flowery pasch) or pascua de resurección (pasch of resurrection).

Epiphany : pascua de Epifanía.

Pentecost : pascua de Pentecostés.

THE CHAMORRO PÅSGUA

Chamorros borrowed the Spanish word pascua but pronounce it påsgua.

Old-time Chamorros would say "påsguan nochebuena" for Christmas; "påsguan resureksion" for Easter, and "påsguan pentekostes" for Pentecost.  I never heard an elderly Chamorro talk about "påsguan epifania" but for all I know they did in the old days.

EASTER PARTY AND EGG HUNT

On Low Sunday (Divine Mercy Sunday), the community gathered after Holy Mass for a potluck luncheon party.  Afterwards, the little ones enjoyed an Easter egg hunt.

REGINA CAELI

THE CHAPEL AT EASTER TIME

PRACTICE NOW THE VIDI AQUAM

During Easter season, at a Sung Mass, we sing the Vidi Aquam instead of the usual Asperges Me. Since it is sung fewer times in the year, we need to familiarize ourselves with it.   We will sing it at least once in the coming Easter season.

Here is the Latin text :

Vidi aquam / egredientem de templo / a latere dextro : alleluia!
Et omnes ad quos pervenit / aqua ista / salvi facti sunt /
et dicent : alleluia!


Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus / quoniam in saecula misericordia eius.


Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto / sicut erat in principio / et nunc et semper / et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

The English translation :

I saw water coming forth from the temple on the right side : alleluia!
And all those to whom this water came / were saved and shall say : alleluia!


Give praise to the Lord for He is good / for His mercy endureth forever.


Glory be to the Father...

THE MEANING

When our Lord was hanging on the cross, a soldier thrust his lance into the Lord's side and out flowed blood and water, representing the sacraments of the Church which give us grace and life.

Christ is the true temple, seen in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel as quoted in the Vidi Aquam. Ezekiel saw the temple, and, from the right, flowed water which turned into a river that gave birth to all kinds of vegetative and animal life. This vision was prophetic and symbolic of the life-giving sacraments, coming forth from the pierced side of the crucified Jesus, the true temple.

See Ezekiel, chapter 47, verses 1 and 9.