Easter Sunday: Meditation on the Entrance Antiphons

“I have risen, and I am with you still, alleluia. You have laid your hand upon me, alleluia. Too wonderful for me, this knowledge, alleluia, alleluia.”

“The Lord is truly risen, alleluia. To him be glory and power for all the ages of eternity, alleluia, alleluia.”

- Entrance Antiphons for Easter Sunday

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

This most mysterious and sacred word shall not cease to leave the lips of the faithful children of the Church today. Holy Mother Church has deprived Herself of it for the past forty days, for it is a heavenly word and She has been focused upon Her earthly life. But now these thoughts are dispersed with the rising of the morning sun, as Jesus Christ, God and man, the Conqueror of Death, rises gloriously from the tomb! The sorrows that enveloped us these past few days are quickly forgotten, and with St. Paul we cry out, "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? (1 Corinthians 15:54-55)" 

The season of Lent was a time for contemplating our earthly lives, but the season of Easter is one in which we contemplate our Heavenly lives. The austerities of Lent were meant to discipline the body and bring repentance to the soul; the season of Easter now brings new joys to both body and soul, for the soul may rest in the love of the Christ it has experienced through Lent, and the body may more easily be a tool for God's use. In these days of Easter, the Christian may cast off his penances to arise to the joy they bring, just as Christ rising from the dead cast off His burial cloths.

Throughout this week, we will have the various appearances of our Lord brought before us. Today, let us focus instead on the good news of Christ's Resurrection proclaimed by the angels and by Mary Magdalene, and given to us in our Entrance Antiphons.

The first of the antiphons we have is one which gives us the words Jesus Himself could speak on the morning of His Resurrection, but concludes with the our own words. The second of the antiphons proclaims the message of the angels and of Mary Magdalene to the Apostles.

Last night we celebrated the Baptism of the Elect into the Church and we commemorated our own Baptism and our birth to new life through the Resurrection of Jesus. Nevertheless, though our hearts were filled with joy and gladness at all of these events, we still awaited the glorious light of morning so that we could rejoice fully in the Resurrection. In the dead of night we celebrated Christ's birth at Christmas, and at night we celebrated His passage from death to life which we participate in through Baptism. Until this morning we have been celebrating the glorious events of our salvation in the evening, but from this moment, the principal Masses of the Liturgical Year's solemnities will take place during the day, beginning with the morning Mass of today.

To understand the first of these antiphons, we must consider this feature of the Liturgy, which has so interestingly penetrated the Liturgical Year's format. First, however, let us ponder two passages from Sacred Scripture. The first is from the Psalms, which is often noted to be called, "the heart of the Old Testament." It is, "My soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen for the morning (Psalm 130:6)." The second passage is the central Old Testament reading from the Easter Vigil, and it is the Exodus from Egypt and the Crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14. It is important to note that the crossing began in the night, and ended in the morning watch.

How significant these times are and how full of meaning for us! The beginning of salvation comes in the deep of night, but it is always with the expectation of day. Sentinels are posted to keep watch through the night so that the enemy may not penetrate the fortress under the cover of darkness, whilst the majority of the citadel takes their rest. Yet, the coming of the Lord in His strength is associated with the break of day.

Let us apply this to the Nativity of the Lord and Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection, the two hinge feasts of the Liturgical Year. Our Lord was born in the dead of night, as the ancient prayer in preparation for Christmas says, "at Midnight, in a cave, at Bethlehem, in the piercing cold." Nevertheless, although this is the entrance of the Light of the World into the world, this is not the coming of the Lord in His power. It is just the opposite! Jesus is born in lowliness and weakness, as a newborn babe.

However, when we look at the Resurrection, these events are to the contrary. Gueranger provides a fitting meditation on what the Resurrection may have been like:
   
“The day of light, Sunday, has begun, and its early dawn is struggling with the gloom. The Soul of Jesus immediately darts from the prison of limbo . . . . In the twinkling of an eye, it reaches and enters the sepulchre, and reunites itself with that Body which, three days before, it had quitted amidst an agony of suffering. The sacred Body returns to life, raises itself up, and throws aside the winding-sheet, the spices, and the bands. The bruises have disappeared, the Blood has been brought back to the veins; and from these limbs that had been torn by the scourging, from this head that had been mangled by the thorns, from these hands and feet that had been pierced with nails, there darts forth a dazzling light that fills the cave (The Liturgical Year, Volume: Paschaltide, Easter Sunday).”

It is at break of day that the might of the Lord is shown, for He passes through the realm of death back into the realm of life, as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea! Sin and death are defeated and thrown down as the hosts of Pharaoh were drowned by the waters! The might of the Lord is displayed in Christ's raising Himself from the dead! In this event, the salvation, which was begun in the Incarnation and the birth of Christ of Mary, is completed!

In the birth of Jesus Christ we contemplated how near He was to us, for our very God became man. He walked among us and was able to be seen in the flesh and touched, not in the manner of visions of old, but in His actual body! Yet, as the Entrance Antiphon proclaims, our God is with us still! In the flesh, He was crucified, and the soul of our Redeemer was separated from His body and quitted this earth, yet through the Resurrection Jesus, the Son of God, is present again among us! While God the Son was never absent from earth in His Divinity, nor can He be, in His sacred humanity He was absent during His three days sojourn in the tomb.

Yet now we may fittingly cry, "Alleluia!," for by the Resurrection Christ can never again be absent from us! He died once, and shall never die again! On the day of the Crucifixion and the Sabbath day following it, the hearts of all the Apostles, the holy women, and all the disciples of Christ all despaired, for He had been taken away from them. He lay in the tomb and they were no longer able to touch Him or converse with Him. Only in the heart of our Blessed Mother was union with Jesus preserved, for she acknowledged His Divinity and trusted in the promise of His Resurrection. At dawn of the third day, however, Jesus Christ bursts through death's gates and rises in His body!

The Resurrection of Jesus is not some loose spiritual vision, nay, it is a physical Resurrection! Only if it is a physical Resurrection would there be need for Jesus to say that He is with us still, for as we noted He was never absent from us in His Divinity, yet in His humanity, the absence would be physical. Death lay his wicked hand upon Christ and imposed upon Him the punishment for all mankind. Yet Christ defeated this enemy and thus gained for our entire race a reward beyond what was first offered in the Garden of Eden. He has bestowed the Divine life upon us, for if by the Hypostatic Union our human nature is freed from sin through its union with the Divine, so then by this union it must also gain the Life it now shares in! And so we have another fitting reason to proclaim, "Alleluia!"

It is also precisely this union of Jesus' humanity with His Divinity which allows Him to still be present among us, for He physically ascended above the heavens, leaving this earth. However, through the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ truly present on earth, He is able to abide among us. Through the Eucharist we encounter the Risen Christ, for since the Divinity is present, the humanity must also be present. We may say, then, the Eucharist is the abiding presence of the Risen Christ with us, and this is another cause for us to sing, "Alleluia!"

This knowledge is indeed far too wonderful for us! We know that we are like St. Peter. We have so often abandoned and denied our Lord, for this is what we do on every occasion we sin. However, the knowledge of Christ's love for us - the fact He died for our sins and so that He would not abandon us, He rose from the dead, and even after His Ascension, He abides with us through the Eucharist and has sent the Holy Spirit among us - this can only move our hearts to repentance and love. We can only be like St. Peter, who never ceases to weep for his sins, so much so that his cheeks are marked with a furrow of his tears.

And on account of this repentance, the Lord shall come to us, as He appeared to Simon Peter after His Resurrection from the dead (Luke 24:34). As our Lord's love for us was too strong to keep Him sealed away from us in the tomb, so He will not abandon us when contrition moves our hearts to a deeper love for Him. He gives us the Sacraments, especially Baptism, that we may be born into new life with Him, Confession to constantly cleanse us of our sins, and the Holy Eucharist so that He may abide with us.

And are not these three Sacraments the central focus of our week? Today, we renew our Baptismal Promises; we recall how in Baptism we died with Christ and rose to new life with Him. We participated in His most bitter Death and in His glorious Resurrection, and we long to remain in this new life now. However, in order to properly do this, we need the other two Sacraments especially.

While Confession was a Sacrament of great focus for us throughout Lent, we cannot help but to also contemplate it this week, for the end of the Easter Octave, next Sunday, is Divine Mercy Sunday, in which many Priests throughout the world will be offering this wonderful Sacrament in coordination with the wishes of Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. It is appropriate as well that this Sacrament be of focus to us throughout the season of Easter as well, for it is a "re-participation" in Baptism, in a sense. 

Through the Sacrament of Confession, the merits of the Cross are applied to us and we are washed of our sins. This was symbolized through the blood and water which flowed from the side of Christ on the Cross (John 19:34), and which is one of the central focuses of Divine Mercy Sunday. However, it is not simply the Cross which is contemplated in Confession, but the Resurrection is integral to it as well, for through Confession we are either raised back into new life, if we had lost it through mortal sin, or made more perfect in it if we had not lost the life of grace. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, then, is also all about the Death of Christ to this world of sin and His rising to the new life of grace, which we also participate in! How can we not have the alleluia dance within our hearts at this?

But let us consider that third Sacrament as well, the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist. As we said, it is through this Sacrament that Christ continues to abide with us in His Resurrected state. But this is also the Sacrament through which we are granted the grace to participate in the Resurrection, for as St. Thomas Aquinas says in the sequence Lauda Sion, "Both the wicked and good eat of this celestial Food: but with ends how opposite! With this most substantial Bread, unto life or death they're fed, in a difference infinite." Through the Eucharist, eternal life is born into our souls, or eternal death if we dare to receive it in the state of mortal sin - a state by which we have already destroyed the Risen Christ within us!

But the miracle that is the Eucharist goes even farther, for through it, when ever we enter a church or chapel in which the Holy Sacrament is reserved, we are able to abide in the presence of the Risen Lord, just as the disciples were pleased to dwell with Him on that first Easter evening in the upper room (Luke 24:36-43). At all hours of the day, the Faithful throughout the world approach Jesus, risen in glory in the Eucharist, to adore Him, to bless Him, to ask favors of Him, to simply be in His presence. Every time we approach the Risen Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, we should not hesitate to adore Him with the joyful word of this day, "Alleluia!"

Truly wonderful are the mysteries of this most glorious Solemnity of solemnities! After the three past days, it is as if all of the joys we experience upon this day are new and have never been felt before! "The Lord is truly risen, alleluia!" He has brought new life to our souls; He has deigned to allow us, while still on this earth, to dwell in heavenly places through His grace and Sacraments!

For the rest of our lives, then, let us keep the heavenly word of "Alleluia," on our lips, in our minds, and in our hearts especially. May the Risen Christ always dwell with us, and if we should lose Him through mortal sin, let us run to find Him again. We do not need to be like Mary Magdalene and the women who say, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him (John 20:13)," but we know that Christ is risen and longs that we return to Him! May we then, in union with all the angels and saints, cling to the Lord as we sing, "Alleluia to the Risen Lord! To him be glory and power for all the ages of eternity! Alleluia!"