O God, come to my assistance.
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Alleluia.
Invitatory
Lord, Open my lips
And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
Antiphon: The Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
Come let us praise the Lord with joy: let us joyfully sing to God our savior.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.
Antiphon: The Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
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.
Antiphon: The Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
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.
Antiphon: The Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
For he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
Antiphon: The Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: The Lord is truly risen, alleluia.
Hymn
At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing
At the Lamb’s high feast we sing
Praise to our victorious King,
Who hath washed us in the tide
Flowing from his pierced side;
Praise we him, whose love divine
Gives his sacred Blood for wine,
Gives his Body for the feast,
Christ the victim, Christ the priest.
Mighty victim from the sky,
Hell’s fierce powers beneath thee lie;
Thou hast conquered in the fight,
Thou hast brought us life and light:
Now no more can death appall,
Now no more the grave enthrall;
Thou hast opened paradise,
And in thee thy saints shall rise.
Easter triumph, Easter joy,
Sin alone can this destroy;
From sin’s power do thou set free
Souls new-born, O Lord, in thee.
Hymns of glory, songs of praise,
Father, unto thee we raise;
Risen Lord, all praise to thee,
With the Spirit ever be.
Psalmody
Antiphon 1
It is good to give praise to the Lord, alleluia.
Psalm 91
It is good to give praise to the Lord: and to sing to thy name, O most High.
To shew forth thy mercy in the morning, and thy truth in the night:
Upon an instrument of ten strings, upon the psaltery: with a canticle upon the harp.
For thou hast given me, O Lord, a delight in thy doings: and in the works of thy hands I shall rejoice.
O Lord, how great are thy works! thy thoughts are exceeding deep.
The senseless man shall not know: nor will the fool understand these things.
When the wicked shall spring up as grass: and all the workers of iniquity shall appear:
That they may perish for ever and ever: but thou, O Lord, art most high for evermore.
For behold thy enemies, O Lord, for behold thy enemies shall perish: and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.
But my horn shall be exalted like that of the unicorn: and my old age in plentiful mercy.
My eye also hath looked down upon my enemies: and my ear shall hear of the downfall of the malignant that rise up against me.
The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus.
They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God.
They shall still increase in a fruitful old age: and shall be well treated,
That they may shew, that the Lord our God is righteous, and there is no iniquity in him.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon 1
It is good to give praise to the Lord, alleluia.
Antiphon 2
I will proclaim the name of the Lord; give ye magnificence to our God, alleluia.
Canticle — Deuteronomy 32
Hear, O ye heavens, the things I speak, let the earth give ear to the words of my mouth.
Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil as the dew,
As a shower upon the herb, and as drops upon the grass.
Because I will invoke the name of the Lord: give ye magnificence to our God.
The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments:
God is faithful and without any iniquity, he is just and right.
They have sinned against him, and are none of his children in their filth:
They are a wicked and perverse generation.
Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people?
Is not he thy father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee?
Remember the days of old, think upon every generation:
Ask thy father, and he will declare to thee: thy elders and they will tell thee.
When the Most High divided the nations: when he separated the sons of Adam,
He appointed the bounds of people according to the number of the children of Israel.
But the Lord’s portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his inheritance.
He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror, and of vast wilderness:
He led him about, and taught him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye.
As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them,
He spread his wings, and hath taken him and carried him on his shoulders.
The Lord alone was his leader: and there was no strange god with him.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon 2
I will proclaim the name of the Lord; give ye magnificence to our God, alleluia.
Antiphon 3
O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth, alleluia.
Psalm 8
O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth!
For thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise, because of thy enemies,
That thou mayst destroy the enemy and the avenger.
For I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers:
The moon and the stars which thou hast founded.
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
Or the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour:
And hast set him over the works of thy hands.
Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen:
Moreover the beasts also of the fields.
The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea, that pass through the paths of the sea.
O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name in all the earth!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon 3
O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth, alleluia.
Short Reading
Romans 14:7–9
For none of us liveth to himself; and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose again; that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Responsory
This is the day which the Lord hath made, alleluia, alleluia.
Let us be glad and rejoice therein, alleluia, alleluia.
The Lord is risen indeed.
Alleluia, alleluia.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
This is the day which the Lord hath made, alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Canticle
Antiphon
Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full, alleluia.
Benedictus
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people.
And hath raised up an horn of salvation to us, in the house of David his servant.
As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, who are from the beginning.
Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.
To perform mercy to our fathers, and to remember his holy testament.
The oath, which he swore to Abraham our father, that he would grant to us.
That being delivered from the hand of our enemies, we may serve him without fear.
In holiness and justice before him, all our days.
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways.
To give knowledge of salvation to his people, unto the remission of their sins.
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us.
To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death: to direct our feet into the way of peace.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Antiphon
Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full, alleluia.
Intercessions
Let us pray to Christ our risen Lord, who leads his people to the Father.
Lord Jesus, bring us to the Father.
Risen Lord, you promised that whatever we ask the Father in your name shall be given:
teach us to ask not for trifles, but for holiness, courage, and joy.
Lord Jesus, bring us to the Father.
You strengthened Apollos through the wise correction of Priscilla and Aquila:
make us humble enough to learn, and bold enough to speak the truth.
Lord Jesus, bring us to the Father.
You have conquered death and opened paradise:
free us from fear, discouragement, and the small tyrannies of self.
Lord Jesus, bring us to the Father.
You gave your Church the gift of Easter joy:
make our homes, schools, parishes, and work places signs of resurrection.
Lord Jesus, bring us to the Father.
You are Lord of the living and the dead:
receive the faithful departed into the joy that no man can take away.
Lord Jesus, bring us to the Father.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation: but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Concluding Prayer
O God, who by the resurrection of thy Son hast filled the world with joy, grant that we may ask in his holy name with clean hearts and receive that joy which no sorrow can destroy. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
Paradox of the Day
The Christian asks for everything only when he has learned that everything is a gift.
G.K. Chesterton Quote
“Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”
— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Chestertonian Reflection
Our Lord’s promise in today’s Gospel is almost too simple to be believed: “Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full.” We are suspicious of simplicity because we have made our souls complicated. We imagine prayer as a technical system, a spiritual machine with secret levers and hidden instructions. But Christ speaks as a Son speaking of his Father’s house. Knock, ask, receive.
Yet this is not the magic of getting what we want. It is the miracle of learning what we ought to want. The child asks for fire because it sparkles; the father gives him bread because he loves him. The Christian life is not the abolition of desire, but the baptism of desire. We begin by asking for small comforts, and God slowly teaches us to ask for joy.
There is a splendid humility in Apollos from today’s first reading. He is eloquent, learned, fervent, and still incomplete. Priscilla and Aquila do not crush him; they complete him. That too is an Easter lesson. Resurrection does not merely raise the dead; it corrects the living. The proud man cannot be taught because he thinks every correction is a burial. The humble man discovers that correction is often a resurrection.
So we ask today in the name of Christ. We ask for wisdom. We ask for courage. We ask for the grace to be corrected without resentment and to rejoice without embarrassment. For the risen Christ does not promise us a thin happiness that depends upon circumstances. He promises joy — the great, unreasonable, indestructible joy of those who have found the Father.
And that is why the Christian can ask boldly. He is not begging at the door of a stranger. He is knocking at the door of home.
This is Chesterton Radio, inviting you to begin the day with wonder, gratitude, and the joy of the risen Christ.