Dom Prosper Gueranger:
Let us honour the Resurrection of our divine Messiah by offering Him this Easter Sequence of the ancient Missals of Saint Gall’s.
Let our most beautiful praise magnify the new victory of the great King on the Cross.
On the Cross was conquered the empire of death.
On the Cross was made void the hand-writing of the sin that was of old.
On the Cross was sacrificed the Paschal Lamb for the flock.
On the Cross was the winepress trodden by him that came from Edom and Bosra.
It is the antidote that cures the sting of the serpent’s wound.
By the Cross is the world brought back into God’s favour: it was, in Adam, sold by a tree, and by a tree is now redeemed.
By the Cross, the last made of creatures is associated with the Morning Stars, and repairs Heaven’s losses.
Cross! You Tree of Life that bears the Life and Ransom of the world: you are the staff, bearing upon you the Cluster of Grapes from the vineyards of Engaddi.
Christ is our Peace who takes enmities away and gives peace to them that are afar off, and to them that are near.
O mighty Cross! You draw the whole world to yourself and, with your two arms, embraces all mankind.
O lofty Cross! You penetrate into the depths below and raise to Heaven the captives you loose.
On you Christ offered the Temple of His Flesh which had been built in the number of days expressed by the four Greek letters composing Adam’s name — He offered it that it might be destroyed, but He raised it up again in three days, that He might save the four quarters of the world.
O Lamb of the Sovereign Father that, by the Cross, takes away the sins of the world, grant that by our growth in faith, hope and charity, we may be able to comprehend, with all the Saints, the measure of the Holy Cross.
That having compassion on our neighbours and mortifying our flesh we may carry the dear Cross, and be drawn by you to walk in your footsteps.
Thus safe and protected in this life, grant, O Divine Judge that, by the sign of the holy Cross, we may be so, when standing before your tribunal, and may proclaim aloud to all nations, “that the Lord has reigned from the Wood.” Amen.
