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Easter Monday
April 10, 2023
On the Resurrection2
From the “Songs for the Fast and Pascha” by St Ephrem the Syrian
See the cheerful feast day… Voices with voices woven, and all of them have risen up to reach heaven… Blessed are the silent who have thundered forth through him!
See how the earth has thundered forth below, and above, heaven has thundered forth! / April has mixed voices with voices: exalted ones with low ones, / voices of the sanctified church mixed with the thunder of divinity, / and amidst the glow of its lamps are mixed flashes of lightning. / With the rain, the passion’s weeping, and with the field, the fast of Pascha.
In the same way, on the ark, every voice shouted joyfully from every mouth. / Outside were terrible waves, but inside were beautiful voices… Glory to the Lord of the ark!
At this feast, when each has brought his victorious deeds as his offerings, / I lamented for myself, my master, for I saw that I stand [here] meagerly. / My intellect, moistened by your dew, became an April anew… Blessed is the cloud that has poured down upon me!…
Exquisite, eloquent flowers did the children scatter before the king: / the donkey was crowned with them, the road was full of them. / Praises did they scatter like flowers, and melodies like lilies. / Now, too, in [this] feast, / the assembly of children scatters for you, my Lord, / Hallelujahs like blossoms. Blessed is he who was praised by the young!…
Let us summon and call the victorious martyrs, apostles, and prophets, / whose blossoms are like them: victorious are their flowers, / and rich are their roses, the sweet fragrance of their lilies / they gather from the garden of delights, and bring lovely flowers / to crown our beautiful feast. Glory to you from [all] the blessed!
The crowns of kings are impoverished before the richness of your crown, / in which purity is plaited, in which faith shines, / in which humility gleams, in which holiness is woven. / in which great love glimmers. See how perfect is the beauty of your crown…
Our King, receive our offering, and give us salvation in its stead! / Bring peace to the lands which were ruined, build up the churches which were burned, / so that when there is great peace [again], we may plait for you a great crown, / as blossoms and those who plait them come in from all sides, / that the Lord of peace might be crowned. Blessed is he who has acted and can act
2 St. Ephrem the Syrian. The Fathers of the Church: Songs for the Fast and Pascha. Trans. Joshua Falconer, Blake Hartung, and J. Edward Walters. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. 195-199.