Invitatory
V. O Lord, open my lips.
R. And my mouth shall declare Thy praise.
Antiphon:
The Lord is risen indeed: Come, let us adore Him. Alleluia.
Invitatory Psalm — Psalm 94 (95)
Come let us praise the Lord with joy:
let us joyfully sing to God our Saviour.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
and make a joyful noise to Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
For in His hand are all the ends of the earth:
and the heights of the mountains are His.
For the sea is His, and He made it:
and His hands formed the dry land.
Come let us adore and fall down:
and weep before the Lord that made us.
For He is the Lord our God:
and we are the people of His pasture
and the sheep of His hand.
Today if you shall hear His voice,
harden not your hearts…
Glory be to the Father…
Antiphon:
The Lord is risen indeed: Come, let us adore Him. Alleluia.
Hymn
Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
Who did once upon the Cross, Alleluia!
Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!
Psalmody
Psalm 65 (66)
Cry out with joy to God, all the earth, alleluia:
sing ye a psalm to His name, alleluia.
Give glory to His praise, alleluia.
Say unto God: How terrible are Thy works, O Lord!
in the multitude of Thy strength Thy enemies shall lie to Thee.
Let all the earth adore Thee, and sing to Thee:
let it sing a psalm to Thy name.
Come and see the works of God;
who is terrible in His counsels over the sons of men.
He hath turned the sea into dry land:
in the river they shall pass on foot.
Psalm 117 (118)
Give praise to the Lord, for He is good:
for His mercy endureth for ever.
Let Israel now say, that He is good:
that His mercy endureth for ever.
The Lord is my strength and my praise:
and He is become my salvation.
The voice of rejoicing and of salvation
is in the tabernacles of the just.
The stone which the builders rejected;
the same is become the head of the corner.
This is the Lord’s doing, and it is wonderful in our eyes.
Canticle — Revelation 19
Alleluia.
Salvation, and glory, and power is to our God:
for true and just are His judgments.
Alleluia.
Praise our God, all ye His servants:
and you that fear Him, little and great.
Alleluia.
For the Lord our God the Almighty hath reigned:
let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory to Him.
Short Reading — Acts 4:32–33
The multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul: neither did any one say that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but all things were common unto them.
And with great power did the apostles give testimony of the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord: and great grace was in them all.
Responsory
V. This is the day which the Lord hath made. Alleluia.
R. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Alleluia.
Benedictus — Luke 1:68–79
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel;
because He hath visited and wrought the redemption of His people…
(full Benedictus in standard form)
Intercessions
Let us pray to Christ, the risen Lord:
R. Lord, stay with us. Alleluia.
— That our hearts may be made new in the light of the Resurrection.
— That we may live not as owners, but as stewards of Thy gifts.
— That we may be of one heart and one soul with our brethren.
— That we may bear witness to Thy victory in our daily lives.
Concluding Prayer
O God, who hast given joy to the world through the Resurrection of Thy Son our Lord,
grant that we, being renewed in spirit,
may walk in the newness of life.
Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Paradox of the Day
The empty tomb is the heaviest thing in the world.
G.K. Chesterton Quote
“The great and glorious thing about Easter is this: that a man who was dead could come to life again.”
Chestertonian Reflection
The Resurrection is, at first glance, an absence.
There is no body. There is no stone in place. There is no finality. In a curious way, Easter begins not with a presence, but with a lack—a vacancy, an emptiness, a gap where something ought to be.
And yet it is precisely this emptiness that outweighs the world.
For all the heavy things in human life—grief, guilt, regret, even death itself—are suddenly confronted by something lighter than air and stronger than iron: a tomb that cannot hold what it once contained.
We are accustomed to thinking of reality as something solid, something fixed. Stones stay where they are placed. Bodies stay where they are buried. History stays where it is written.
But Easter interrupts all such assumptions.
The stone is rolled away.
The body is gone.
History is rewritten—not erased, but fulfilled.
And what remains is not confusion, but invitation.
The Apostles do not first understand; they first run. The women do not first explain; they first announce. For the Resurrection is not a problem to be solved, but a fact to be lived.
And that is the real weight of the empty tomb: it presses upon every human life with a quiet but irresistible question—
If death is not final, then what is?
If the grave is not the end, then where are we going?
The Christian answer is both simple and staggering: we are going where He has gone.
And that means that even now, in the middle of ordinary days, something extraordinary is already underway.
The stone has been moved. The door is open.
Chesterton Radio
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