Lord, open my lips.
 - And my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Psalm 95 is the traditional Invitatory Psalm. Psalm 24, 67, or 100 may be substituted.

Antiphon: The Lord is risen, alleluia.

Psalm 95

Psalm 24

Psalm 67

Psalm 100

God, come to my assistance.
 - Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
 -  as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.
Amen.


HYMN

Christ the Lord is Risen Today
The Day of Resurrection

Or:


Sing praise to our Creator,
O sons of Adam’s race;
God’s children by adoption,
Baptized into His grace.

Refrain:
Praise the Holy Trinity,
Undivided Unity;
Holy God, Mighty God,
God Immortal, be adored.

To Jesus Christ give glory,
God’s co-eternal Son;
As members of His Body
we live in Him as one.

Refrain

Now praise the Holy Spirit,
poured forth upon the earth;
Who sanctifies and guides us,
Confirmed in our rebirth.

Refrain

Melody: Mainz 76.76 with Refrain



PSALMODY

Antiphon 1: Lord, in your anger, do not punish me, alleluia.

Psalm 38
A sinner in extreme danger prays earnestly to God
All his friends were standing at a distance. (Luke 23:49)

             I
O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger;
do not punish me, Lord, in your rage.
Your arrows have sunk deep in me;
your hand has come down upon me.

Through your anger all my body is sick:
through my sin, there is no health in my limbs.
My guilt towers higher than my head;
it is a weight too heavy to bear. Glory...

Antiphon 1 Lord, in your anger, do not punish me, alleluia.

Antiphon 2 Lord, you know all my longings, alleluia.

                         II
My wounds are foul and festering,
the result of my own folly.
I am bowed and brought to my knees.
I go mourning all the day long.

All my frame burns with fever;
all my body is sick.
Spent and utterly crushed,
I cry aloud in anguish of heart.

O Lord, you know all my longing:
my groans are not hidden from you.
My heart throbs, my strength is spent;
the very light has gone from my eyes.

My friends avoid me like a leper;
those closest to me stand afar off.
Those who plot against my life lay snares;
those who seek my ruin speak of harm,
planning treachery all the day long. Glory...

Antiphon 2 Lord, you know all my longings, alleluia.


Antiphon 3 I will confess my guilt to you, Lord; do not abandon me, for you are my Savior, alleluia.

                         III
But I am like the deaf who cannot hear,
like the dumb unable to speak.
I am like a man who hears nothing
in whose mouth is no defense.

I count on you, O Lord:
it is you, Lord God, who will answer.
I pray: "Do not let them mock me,
those who triumph if my foot should slip."

For I am on the point of falling
and my pain is always before me.
I confess that I am guilty
and my sin fills me with dismay.

My wanton enemies are numberless
and my lying foes are many.
They repay me evil for good
and attack me for seeking what is right.

O Lord, do not forsake me!
My God, do not stay afar off!
Make haste and come to my help,
O Lord, my God, my savior! Glory...

Antiphon 3 I will confess my guilt to you, Lord; do not abandon me, for you are my Savior, alleluia.


Christ Jesus, you have risen from the dead, alleluia.
- Let the heavens and the earth rejoice, alleluia.


FIRST READING

From the book of Revelation       4:1-11

The vision of God

After this I had a vision of an open door  to heaven, and I heard the trumpetlike voice that had spoken to me before, saying, "Come up here and I will show you what must happen afterwards."

At once I was caught up in spirit. A throne was there in heaven, and on the throne sat one whose appearance sparkled like jasper and carnelian. Around the throne was a halo as brilliant as an emerald. Surrounding the throne I saw twenty-four other thrones on which twenty-four elders  sat, dressed in white garments and with gold crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder.  Seven flaming torches burned in front of the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. In front of the throne was something that resembled a sea of glass like crystal.  

In the center and around the throne, there were four living creatures covered with eyes in front and in back. The first creature resembled a lion, the second was like a calf, the third had a face like that of a human being, and the fourth looked like an eagle  in flight. The four living creatures, each of them with six wings,  were covered with eyes inside and out. Day and night they do not stop exclaiming:

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty,
who was, and who is, and who is to come."

Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before the one who sits on the throne and worship him, who lives forever and ever. They throw down their crowns before the throne, exclaiming:

"Worthy are you, Lord our God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things;
because of your will they came to be and were created."


RESPONSORY          Revelation 4:8; Isaiah 6:3
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,
he who was and who is and who is to come;
 - all the earth is full of his glory, alleluia.

The seraphim cried out to one another:
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
 - All the earth is full of his glory, alleluia.


SECOND READING

From a sermon by Saint Theodore the Studite
(Oratio in adorationem crucis: PG 99, 691-694, 695, 698-699)

The precious and life-giving cross of Christ

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree. What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! The supreme wisdom that flowered on the cross has shown the folly of worldly wisdom’s pride. The knowledge of all good, which is the fruit of the cross, has cut away the shoots of wickedness.

The wonders accomplished through this tree were foreshadowed clearly even by the mere types and figures that existed in the past. Meditate on these, if you are eager to learn. Was it not the wood of a tree that enabled Noah, at God’s command, to escape the destruction of the flood together with his sons, his wife, his sons’ wives and every kind of animal? And surely the rod of Moses prefigured the cross when it changed water into blood, swallowed up the false serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians, divided the sea at one stroke and then restored the waters to their normal course, drowning the enemy and saving God’s own people? Aaron’s rod, which blossomed in one day in proof of his true priesthood, was another figure of the cross, and did not Abraham foreshadow the cross when he bound his son Isaac and placed him on the pile of wood?

By the cross death was slain and Adam was restored to life. The cross is the glory of all the apostles, the crown of the martyrs, the sanctification of the saints. By the cross we put on Christ and cast aside our former self. By the cross we, the sheep of Christ, have been gathered into one flock, destined for the sheepfolds of heaven.


RESPONSORY          
A tree of priceless value stands in the center of paradise;
 - by his own death on this tree, our Savior overcame death for us, alleluia.

Among the cedars of the forest,
this one surpasses all the others.
 - by his own death on this tree, our Savior overcame death for us, alleluia.


COLLECT
O God, hope and light of the sincere,
we humbly entreat you to dispose our hearts
to offer you worthy prayer
and ever to extol you
by dutiful proclamation of your praise.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


Let us praise the Lord.
- And give him thanks.