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We will not attempt here a definitive summary of the Easter Mysteries. However, here is a minimalist approach, which will reframe this first-class Christian holiday. In fact, Easter is for all the Churches dedicated to Christ, the holiday feast, because it is on it that the faith rests.
The term "Easter" means "passage". All Christians therefore celebrate, on this occasion, the passage towards a new reality which is concretized by the victory of Jesus over death, and consequently, by the hope of knowing another life with God. If you do not want to or cannot attend the religious celebrations, perform the prayers of Saint Augustine below on the days specified ... |
Easter is preceded by a long period of preparation: it is Lent. This is a 40-day period during which all Christians prepare for Holy Week. This long period of penance is marked by its opening day: Ash Wednesday. It is strongly recommended on this day to begin the Rite at the Cross of Ashes which allows us to show the Heavenly Forces that we ardently want to do penance and rekindle the Flame of Faith.
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Holy Week precedes Easter Day.
It is punctuated by highlights:Palm Sunday
Holy Week opens on Palm Sunday which gives rise to an office during which the faithful have the priest bless the branches of boxwood, palm, olive or laurel, depending on the country. This rite recalls the triumphant arrival at Jerusalem of Jesus, who was acclaimed by the crowd waving palm branches.
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Palm Sunday Prayer
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A perform three times in the day
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Lord Jesus, it is on the first day of a week when you were to die on a cross, that you made your entry into Jerusalem, as the King promised and waited for centuries, the debonair King, the Prince of peace. We bring you the homage of our worship. We take for ourselves the exhortation of the prophet: "Rejoice, daughter of Zion: here is your King! And with your disciples, we sing: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! With all your faithful spread all over the world, we bow our knees before You and our tongue confesses that you are the Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Your disciples, O Savior of our souls, stretched palms and garments on your way; we want to put at your feet offerings that please you more: those of our gratitude, of our love and of our faith. We want to live with you, and for you, and thus prepare ourselves to contemplate one day your glory, in the new Jerusalem, eternal stay of your redeemed.
Approved, Lord, today, our thanksgiving and our prayers. Reveal your greatness to those who do not know you; Bring back to you those who forget you or deny you; Attract to you all men. That during this Holy Week, the preaching of the cross manifests itself as the wisdom and power of God for the salvation of sinners.
Spread, O Almighty God, your Holy Spirit on your Church, so that she may proclaim with force the love and the virtues of her Savior; May your grace and peace be on this house, on our beloved ones, on the sick, the unfortunate, the afflicted, on all the men who are our brothers. Amen.
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Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Saints
These three days prepare for the mysteries which are at the center of religion: God is made flesh, dead and risen for the redemption of men.
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Every day, we must recite Litanies with one hundred and fifty names of Jesus : to be done three times a day, at different times.
After performing the Litanies above, you must recite in the Bible
Psalm 42: Once, on Monday.
Psalm 43: Twice in a row, on Tuesday.
The Psalm 62: three times in a row, on Wednesday.
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Holy Thursday
This day brings to life the last meal of Jesus, the Last Supper, in which he instituted the Eucharist. But before this major episode of Christianity, Christ, by humility, washed the feet of his disciples, a task that at that time was entrusted to non-Jewish slaves. Holy Thursday is also the day of the office of darkness, a term which in the Bible designates a "world without God".
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Holy Thursday Prayer
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A perform twice in the day, once in the morning and once in the evening
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Lord Jesus, Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, we thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for wanting to know the anguish that has taken hold of your soul, when the terrors of death have fallen on you. We give you thanks for your ardent prayer in Gethsemane, when, prostrating yourself on the ground, you have sacrificed your will to the will of your Father. We thank you for letting yourself be charged with bonds, like a malefactor, to deliver us from the bonds of sin and death. We thank you for enduring, for our sake, so much unworthy treatment. We give you thanks for the great patience, gentleness and humility with which you have expiated our disobedience, our pride, our spirit of anger and vengeance. We thank you that, because of us, you wanted to be obedient to death on the cross, and that you thereby delivered us from condemnation.
O you who have invited us to follow you in the garden of agony, let us understand, by the sight of your anguish and your bloody sweat, at the same time how much God hates sin and at what price we have been redeemed of his slavery. Open our minds and our hearts so that we may know in the night around us to find in you the light of life. May you, O Christ, suffering from love, sinking and supplicating, grappling with all the powers of evil, and yet victorious, teach us to love and to suffer, to pray and to submit, to struggle and to triumph. . Amen.
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On Good FridayThe Church commemorates the death of Christ on this day. It is the day of the Way of the Cross. |
Good Friday Prayer
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Prayer to perform once in the day
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What have you done, O Jesus, to be so condemned? What is your fault? What is your crime? O mystery of love! It is for us that you have suffered; We are the authors of your shame and your torment. The righteous is punished for sinners, the innocent is struck for the guilty, the saint is condemned for the wicked. It is we who have done the wrong and it is you who bear the pain. It is we who have committed the offense, and it is you who receives the punishment. It is we who have accomplished the crime, and it is you who is attached to the cross. We are raised by pride, and it is you who suffer humiliation. We have been rebellious, and you have been obedient to death. We have lived for the flesh and its lusts, and it is your flesh that is torn. We drank the cup of pleasure, and you, you taste the bitterness of gall. We have deserved eternal condemnation, and it is you who bend under the burden of our iniquities, and who know the unspeakable anguish of the Father's abandonment.
What will you give us, our Redeemer and our King? What could we find that responds to such a benefit, comparable to such mercy? Unworthy of offering you anything, we know that you will enjoy the work of your soul, if we offer you our bodies as living sacrifices. Come and reign over us; Come live in each of us. And since you consent to charge yourself with all our uncleanness and all our infidelities, oh! cover us with the cloak of your righteousness, and make us, by your Spirit and by your divine strength, a people of redeemed and children of God, who belong to you in your own right and who are zealous for good works. Amen.
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The Vigil Pascale
Vigile Pascale is called the Easter vigil, ie the night from Saturday to Sunday. This vigil is an integral part of the day of celebration of the next day which corresponds to a kind of continuity without break. It is in these hours that we live this moment as the "passage to a new day", the one where Christ came back among men, the one that gives full meaning to the life of Jesus and to human existence. .
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Holy Saturday Prayer
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This prayer session must take place in the evening and last no less than 99 minutes.
Read the prayers by the light of three consecrated candles.
Program
1 - the "Our Father"
2- The Psalms 42, 43, 62
3 - Holy Saturday Prayer
4 - the Psalms 2, 148 and 150
Repeat the program as many times as necessary
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O God of love, who have proclaimed before us throughout this week the immensity of your mercy, please accept the humble expression of our imperfect recognition. You took pity on us, and you sent us your only Son, who loved us to give his life for us! We bless you, and we will bless you until the end of our lives. But, Lord, help our great weakness. Grant us, in the midst of the preoccupations which absorb us and the passions which assail us, to better discern the voice of our tender and compassionate Savior. Give us to enter happily by the blessed door that his death has opened to us, and to follow him in this path of humility and love, obedience and sacrifice, where he walked himself.
And may the sight of your sepulcher, O Jesus, move us and instruct us. It is for us that you, the light of the world, have consented to pass through the darkness of the tomb. When it seems to us that the wickedness of the world is about to annihilate your Gospel, and that unbelief will forever replace faith here below, remind us that this triumph is only momentary, and that it is to you that the final victory belongs. And when we feel in our turn wrapped in the darkness of the tomb, quicken our hope and tell us that there is no death for those who live with you and for you. Amen.
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Easter day
He is celebrated in a dazzling way throughout the Christian community, especially among the Orthodox. This day celebrates the resurrection of Christ. Formerly, the joy of Easter was not reduced to just one day. Indeed, the entire week was a holiday, a tradition that survives today with Easter Monday.
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Easter morning morning prayer
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Prayer to carry out three times in a row
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God Almighty and all good, let the songs of joy of your children ascend to your throne, from the dawn of this radiant day of triumph and joy. Christ is risen! By the brilliant victory he has won over the power of sin and death, he gives us the pledge of our forgiveness and the assurance of glorious immortality. It brings forth for us an inexhaustible source of peace, consolation and hope. Open our hearts to the Good News that you have sounded to us, and bless the efforts of your servants who, in your name, will publish it in the world. Give us to respond with love to your merciful appeals; And all that we hear today from you, be to our souls a seed of eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Risen Savior. Amen.
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Easter Day Evening Prayer
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Prayer to perform nine times
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O God, when we speak the language of angels, we will be powerless to celebrate the riches of your love! When we were without strength, you redeemed us, poor sinners, by the blood of Jesus. When we were sorry and trembling, in the presence of the king of terror, you opened the tomb of the Crucified One, and you gave us the victory over death. Give us the grace, Lord, to share in all the fruits of the immolation and triumph of our Savior. May we, raised with him, walk in a new and holy life. May he be our strength in life and our hope in death. Amen.
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