Easter Prayer

My grandmother has some beautiful old Portuguese prayer books. One in particular, O Relicario Angelico, or The Angelic Reliquary, offers this moving prayer in honor of the Resurrection. I have taken some liberties with the translation to modernize it.


O my sweet Jesus, may your Holy Name be forever praised.For, after the storm clouds of your most holy Passion followed the serene calm of your Glory, and the night of your sorrows, tears and death gave way to the joyful day of your wondrous Resurrection.

For this great mystery I offer you my gratitude and praise because You died for our sins and rose for our justification. And you desired that those who took pity on you and shed tears over your cruel passion and death should also rejoice in your glorious Resurrection with you and with your most holy mother, who, according to the measure of her past anguish and sorrows, received the consolations and joys of so glorious a day.

What words would be sufficient to worthily declare the ineffable joy that her heart received when she saw you gloriously risen? The darkness of your passion was transformed into beauty,the humiliation into glory, the wounds into glorious splendor. Victor over death and redeemer of life, you triumphed over hell and brought peace to all of heaven and glory to the universe.

Therefore, I ask you, King of Heaven and Earth,the one who glorifies and redeems me,
that I take such joy in your wondrous Resurrection so as to also rise with you and share your risen life.

My God and only good, detach my heart from all the things of earth, fix it on the things of heaven so that I may live with You Who are my true Paradise. Make me forget and hate all the pleasures, vain comforts and earthly consolations that separate me from your service and love, and grant that I may not die in sin so that through your mercy I may rise gloriously in body and soul and reign with you forever in your glory. Amen.