Our Morning Offering – 3 April – “The Month of the Resurrection and the Blessed Sacrament” – Easter Wednesday
“Alleluia!” Now We Cry!
(Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain)
By St John Damascene (675-749)
Father & Doctor of the Church
Trans. John Mason Neale
Come, you faithful, raise the strain
of triumphant gladness!
God has brought His Israel
into joy from sadness,
loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke
Jacob’s sons and daughters,
led them with unmoistened foot
through the Red Sea waters.
See the spring of souls today;
Christ has burst His prison,
and from three days’ sleep in death
as a Sun hath risen;
all the winter of our sins,
long and dark, is flying
from His Light, to Whom we give
laud and praise undying.
Now the queen of seasons, bright
with the day of splendour,
with the Royal Feast of Feasts,
comes its joy to render;
comes to gladden faithful hearts
which with true affection
welcome in unwearied strains
Jesus’ Resurrection!
For today among His own
Christ appeared, bestowing
blessed peace which evermore
passes human knowing.
Neither could the gates of death,
nor the tomb’s dark portal,
nor the watchers, nor the seal,
hold Him as a mortal.
“Alleluia!” Now we cry
to our King immortal,
Who, triumphant, burst the bars
of the tomb’s dark portal.
Come, you faithful, raise the strain
of triumphant gladness!
God has brought His Israel
into joy from sadness!
AnaStpaul 