Pange Lingua!

Tonight is the Easter Vigil. Tomorrow we will process in to the strong strain of Jesus Christ is Risen Today. Both of these services will be well attended and absolutely gorgeous. I, however, will feel a little sorry for many of those who attend these services because this is just the rejoicing that follows the climax. Yesterday, Holy Friday--the best Friday--saw our victory.

The end of the Holy Thursday leaves the church dark, mournful, and eerily silent. The altar is bare and the crucifix is gone. Our lord is departed from our sight and only he knows what the morning brings. The sight of the dark and empty chancel is a reminder like unto the removal of the Glorias, only to a much greater degree. Something is missing and it is unsettling.

The Service of Catechumens begins with pleading and lamentations. The hymns to this point are dirges, terribly beautiful and poetic dirges, but dirges none the less. Our Lord is dead and it is our own hands which have done this.

The Service of Holy Communion begins the same way. Reproaches: why have we done this thing? In return for His blessing blessing, we put our Lord to death. What have we done? As the final reproaches are hurled, the cross is returned to its place above the altar. Christ upon the cross, dead that we might live; thus has he loved us.

The hymn that strikes up as the cross is returned to its place above the altar is not another song of mourning like those that preceded it. Immediately after our hands come away from the cross, a song strikes up and resounds through all the church; a song that sounds like victory.

Sing My Tongue! It rings out like a song worthy of the warriors of Valhalla. The mourning spell is broken and life returns to the feast hall of our Lord. The master of ceremonies directs as the table is laid for the feast, bread and wine are brought for all, and the servants kindle the fires anew. The hall breaks forth in song.

We have done His will; His plan is complete and the enemy is overthrown. He is lifted up among us and the poisonous sting of our fear melts away; we know the grave will not long be able to hold our Captain. Easter is a Foregone conclusion, our debt is paid, and death is dead. The law is fulfilled and Satan cannot harm us; alleluia.

Our victory is not found on an empty cross, but on a full cross and in the broken body which hangs upon it. Yesterday, victory was revealed to us anew.

And now, for a short time, we are quiet and we wait. Our Lord has promised to return to us. We now prepare a feast for His return. It is not, however, with heavy hearts that we prepare for this feast; His return is not in question. We prepare now with light and rejoicing hearts. Tonight we will see our Lord at His feast, in His very body and blood, under the bread and the wine, for us sinful men to eat and drink. We wait until, at last, he brings us into His kingdom, to dwell with Him and all His saints forever and ever.

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
Sing the ending of the fray;
Now above the cross, the trophy,
Sound the loud triumphant lay:
Tell how Christ the world’s Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.

He, our Maker, deeply grieving
That the first made Adam fell,
When he ate the fruit forbidden
Whose reward was death and hell,
Marked e’en then this Tree the ruin
Of the first tree to dispel.

Tell how, when at length the fullness,
Of th’appointed time was come,
Christ, the Word, was born of woman,
Left for us His heavenly home;
Showed us human life made perfect,
Shone as light amid the gloom.

Lo! He lies an Infant weeping,
Where the narrow manger stands,
While the Mother-Maid His members
Wraps in mean and lowly bands,
And the swaddling clothes is winding
Round His helpless feet and hands.

Thus, with thirty years accomplished,
Went He forth from Nazareth,
Destined, dedicated, willing,
Wrought His work, and met His death.
Like a lamb He humbly yielded
On the cross His dying breath.

There the nails and spears He suffers,
Vinegar, and gall, and reed;
From His sacred body piercèd
Blood and water both proceed;
Precious flood, which all creation
From the stain of sin hath freed.

Faithful cross, thou sign of triumph,
Now for us the noblest tree,
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be;
Symbol of the world’s redemption,
For the weight that hung on thee!

Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor
That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend!

Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world’s ransom to sustain,
That a shipwrecked race forever
Might a port of refuge gain,
With the sacred blood anointed
Of the Lamb of sinners slain.

To the Trinity be glory
Everlasting, as is meet:
Equal to the Father, equal
To the Son, and Paraclete:
God the Three in One, whose praises
All created things repeat

-Venantius Fortunatus