When Israel Shall Turn to the Lord: Christ Mystically Present in the Orient

One thing that has really been turning over in my head lately is the concept of the Divine Liturgies of the Church of God being celebrated toward the people or toward the East, toward God. Something that is just striking to me is that there are many, many within the Church today who do not recognize the fact that celebrating the Liturgy with the Priest(s) and the congregation of the priestly people facing East is not, repeat, NOT so that the Priest can have his back to the people. There is an beautifully rich and mystical reason regarding practice of ad orientem Liturgy, one that can be found throughout Scripture and in the organic and Living Tradition of the Catholic Church. Here are eight passages of Scripture (and one, from the Didache, of Sacred Tradition interpreting that Scripture) that give us a sense of the Church's understanding of what worshipping toward the East means, and the mystical Truth that it has been in the Church since the first century.

"For behold the day shall come kindled as a furnace: and all the proud, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall set them on fire, saith the Lord of hosts, it shall not leave them root, nor branch. But unto you that fear my name, the Sun of Justice shall arise, and health in his wings: and you shall go forth, and shall leap like calves of the herd." - Malachi 4:1-2

"For as lightning cometh out of the East, and appeareth even into the west: so shall the coming of the Son of Man be... And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all tribes of the earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. And he shall send his angels with a trumpet, and a great voice: and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them." - St. Matthew 24:27, 29-30


(Notice: Our Lord, Jesus Christ, teaches us that His final and conclusive coming to judge the quick and the dead occurs somehow mystically from the East; when the Eucharist is celebrated toward the East and the faithful worship Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist, the coming of Our Lord in the Eucharist is superimposed over that grand and final coming, becoming itself both a real accessing of the people of God to that day of His Revealing at the end of time, and a type and symbol of that Day. This is all vital Sacred Tradition, and it is unspeakably beautiful. When the Priest(s) proclaims "Lift up your hearts," He means it; we are encountering the Risen Savior coming at the end of time from the East; time and eternity have become interwoven and joined in His Presence in the Eucharist; angels accompany His coming. It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ in the Hidden Manna, and the proclamation of His final coming.)


"Then the Lord shall go forth, and shall fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is over against Jerusalem toward the East: and the Mount of Olives shall be divided in the midst thereof to the East... and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with him... And the Lord shall by King over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and His Name shall be one.


Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly for all the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God.


...as it was said: The Lord shall come and all His saints with Him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven." - Zechariah 14:3-5, 9, St. Jude 1:14-15, and Didache 16:15-17

"When Jesus therefore was born in Bethlehem of Juda, in the days of king Herod, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem. Saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His Star in the East, and are come to adore him." - St. Matthew 2:1-2


"And when they were drawing near to Jerusalem and to Bethania at the Mount of Olives, He sendeth two of his disciples, and saith to them: Go into the village that is over against you, and immediately at your coming in thither, you shall find a colt... And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down boughs from the trees, and strewed them in the way. And they that went before and they that followed, cried, saying: Hosanna, blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.
Blessed be the Kingdom of our father David that cometh: Hosanna in the highest.
And He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple..." - St. Mark 11:1-2, 8-10


(Notice: Christ came from the East, from the Mount of Olives and Bethania, in order to enter the Temple on Palm Sunday, and cleanse it. This calls to mind the following passage from the prophet Ezekiel, which is prophetic of the cleansing of the Temple by Jesus Christ, who is the Image and Glory of God the Father, and it is also prophetic of the Second Coming, as all of these passages are.)


"And he brought me to the gate that looked towards the East. And behold the glory of the God of Israel came in by the way of the East: and His Voice was like the noise of many waters, and the earth shone with His majesty... and I fell upon my face.
And the majesty of the Lord went into the temple by the way of the gate that looked to the East.
And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court: and behold the house was filled with the glory of the Lord.
And I heard one speaking to me out of the house, and the Man that stood by me,
said to me: Son of man, the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever: and the house of Israel shall no more profane My holy Name...
Now therefore let them put away their fornications, and the carcasses of their kings far from Me: and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever.
But thou, son of man, shew to the house of Israel the temple, and let them be ashamed of their iniquities..." - Ezekiel 43:1-10

(Notice as well: What did Ezekiel do when the Glory of God descended upon Him from the East? He fell upon his face. Again, those who do not understand what they are doing (at least, I hope they don't) abolish kneeling before the Presence and Glory of God present even more profoundly to us and in us via the Eucharist, and rarely do you see Priests or anyone else prostrate in adoration before the Sun of Righteousness rising from the East in the Eucharist. Do not doubt this: Everything in the Sacred Liturgy of all the ancient rites is there because the Holy Spirit intended it to be and moved the Church to this symbolism over millennia. This does not mean that Liturgy does not grow and develop, and it doesn't mean changes like altering whether the people receive under one or both species, altering the precise number and types of Clergy celebrating, or other such things should not be done, since indeed both of those and many other things have place in Sacred Tradition and the various Rites present in the Church today. But if there is something that is changed in the Liturgy that is present in no current Rite at all, but is a complete innovation and rupture, that is just... painfully sad and in some cases, impious; for many ought to know better and commit Liturgical abuse and radical alteration anyway.)

"But all things that are reproved, are made manifest by the Light; for all that is made manifest is Light. Wherefore he saith: Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead: and Christ shall enlighten thee." - Ephesians 5:13-14


"And that knowing the Season; that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the Day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of Light. Let us walk honestly, as in the Day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy: But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences." - Romans 13:11-14



"Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendor. But their minds were hardened; for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds; but when a man turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit... For it is the God who said, "Let Light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." - 2nd Corinthians 3:12-18, 4:6


This is the point: the Scriptures are full of mysteries and mystical types, with connections we could scarcely fathom. They truly are divine and sacred Writ, beautiful to behold. When I look back upon the Early Church of the first number of centuries and the very early development of the Liturgies of the Church, this is what I see: I see sacred mystery, I see holy mysticism, I see profound Christian spirituality, I see a Church learning and understanding more and more about the infinite Gift it has in the Eucharist, and I see the Spirit of Christ enlightening His Church how best to honor the Lord in the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist. When you look at how the Liturgy developed very early in the infancy of the Church to the point that the Priest(s) and the people faced East, you can really connect with the mystery they were experiencing and understanding. When the Priest(s) utter the Epiclesis over the holy Gifts, and when they bless them with the prayer of Christ's words, the Spirit and the Bride are indeed calling with one voice to the one who is Light itself, the One who is called the Sun; for He descends down from the Heavens to Hell and disappears for three days, to rise gloriously as the risen Sun, in splendor in the East, to Lighten the world. This is the Mystery! This is the Faith! Those who tamper with the Liturgy do not understand that profound mystical theology of the first, second, third, and fourth century Church. They do not realize that those who first worshipped Christ, had this complex theology already seen in the AD 50's and 60's in St. Paul's writings of Christ being patterned after the Rising Sun, and these and later Christians realized that when they were encountering the Lord Jesus Christ present among them in the sacred Mystery of the Eucharist, by facing East they were greeting their Bridegroom, coming both now and truly present in the Eucharist, and greeting Him in earnest expectation of His final and conclusive Appearing. The night of this world is indeed far spent; Day draws near. Let Grace come to us from the East, and let this world pass away. Let that Place in Eternity where Christ is the only physical and spiritual Reality descend to us now in the Eucharist, and transform us into His Reality of Being, true Reality, for we are in poverty of His Being. Let us draw near to Christ, the Light of the World, the Sun of Justice, and submit to this divine Tradition. Do not be one who stands by as the spirituality of the ancient and Catholic Church is diminished or disregarded, and when you are at the Liturgy, recall to mind these passages, and worship Jesus Christ, who comes into your presence to dispel all night.

Easter Sunday Meditations - Alleluia!

Rejoice, O Heavens; shout to the King, O Earth; bend the knee, specters of Hell! Let none entertain a single doubt, your King has risen, He is risen, He has proven Himself God before the face of men and demons. The evil one could inflict suffering upon the Word made flesh, and thinking the victory was his, Our Lord descends to the realm of the dead. Put to death in the flesh, but all the while alive in the Spirit and joined to His Body by His Divine presence. Not even death could sever His Divinity from His Body, and now at last, with release of all power, the Spirit descends over the body of the Lord and quickens it to life, glorifying and divinizing Him with the light of a thousand suns!

Let us be present there in our meditations, witnessing as the Holy Spirit comes to move over the Body of the Lord, as at the creation of the world, over the waters of death, over seeming chaos and despair; all is quiet, all is still. Contained within the Lord is all of the fulness of Divinity and humanity, the culmination of all creation, and entire world, nay, the realm of the infinite and the entire universe contained in the tomb. The Resurrection represents the complete recreation of the entire cosmos, the entire creation of God; in a sublime mystery, the miracle begun with the incarnation is completed here. God becomes present in the flesh and the paradigm is shifting, for from the moment He is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin's womb, to the moment He is risen to die no more, can be likened to One who Samson was patterned after. Like Samson, Our Lord in assuming the human race into Himself in His incarnation is coming in the midst of and bearing on His mighty shoulders the entire weight of sin, death, and pain that is represented in the crumbling building; He literally bore a crumbling world on His shoulders, not as in Samson's case due to His sin, but for the sin of the world He came willingly to bear its weight of guilt. Indeed, the world caved in on Him, and He like Samson died under the weight of our pain and darkness; but glorious Light of World, He rises from the rubble; not as an ethereal spirit, but bearing His Body that He laid down, and with it bearing the crumbling ruins of the world connected to it and pulling it up, assuming Earth into Heaven, which is none other than the One whose very life was Sacrifice.

Like the Almighty Sun of Righteousness, He falls in the evening of the world below the West to the realm of the dead, spiritually under the earth, and on the morning of New Beginnings, He comes bearing eternity on the fringes of His garment, lightening the world with His light! Soon it will be full noon, and soon He will return; can you not see the demons frightened? They have no where to hide from the Sun, for it shines all around them, risen in resplendent glory! As St. Paul says: "Meanwhile, make no mistake about the age we live in; already it is high time for us to Awake out of our sleep; our salvation is closer to us now than when we first learned to believe. The Night is far on its course; Day draws near. Let us abandon the ways of darkness, and put on the armor of Light. Let us pass our time honorably, as by the Light of Day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and nature's appetites."- Romans 13:11-14

Let us always remember the One who, though He was the Lord God Almighty, glorious beyond all imaging and infinite in every goodness and perfection with the Father and the Holy Spirit, descended into the unfathomably deep abyss of not only Hell but our very corrupt nature that had aligned itself with Hell by the envy of the devil and our cooperation since the primordial times. For it is written of the Lord the following in the divine prophet:

"Come, let us return to the Lord: for he hath taken us, and he will heal us: he will strike, and he will cure us. He will revive us after two days: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. We shall know, and we shall follow on, that we may know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the Morning Light, and he will come to us as the early and the latter Rain to the earth."- Hosea 6:1-3

As it is written in the prophet, the one who is the Judge of all, the one to whom it belongs to mete Divine Justice, Retribution, and Wrath to we who deserve such, has Himself been made to not only represent us but mystically draw us into Himself, annihilating our sin as it came to Him on the Cross in suffering; for the sin and suffering could not bear His terrible and Divine Presence. Notice how the prophet has said that he speaks of us as mankind that the Lord will strike in judgment for our vileness of sin, and that it is us as mankind who will be raised after the third day; yet we know that he speaks not of us, but of our Merciful Savior, Jesus Christ. This signifies therefore that, lest we be entirely withered and die from His Wrath, the Lord comes unto us and joins Himself to us in so intimate a way that in Him mankind did endure His own wrath; in tremendous mystery God suffered in the flesh as man and mystically representing the entirety of mankind, wherefore the divine prophet may speak as though signifying us, when really it is our shared humanity that God has been made partaker of. And now! the meditation of Easter! The prophet says, if we follow on so that we may know the Lord Jesus, his going forth is prepared and destined and resolute as the Morning Light, as the Rising Sun in the East, to dispel all darkness for ever and ever, Alleluia! And in the meanwhile, as He says Himself in His own Gospel, He will not leave us orphans; for He will surely come to us as the Rain of His Spirit to comfort and console us on our journey; He will come in His Eucharistic Presence and in His Spirit, Blood mixed with Raining water pouring from His Side on High, coming to refresh the children of men - Alleluia to the Rock that is our sustenance in this our wilderness on Earth.

And lest we forget our Mother, let us remember her and her sharing in her Divine Son's victory on this day; victorious with Him as Queen of His Kingdom in Heaven and on Earth, and crushing Hell under her heel even now. For the vale of tears that is our exile, which we mention to her in our Rosaries, is none other than the spiritual wilderness that the Israel of the Spirit must walk through; through Our Lady's Fiat, through her commanding word ringing out in the darkness of this world falling apart, creation was renewed in the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ; through the consent of Our Lady of the Eucharist, we receive Our Lord sustaining us as the Water mixed with Blood, and the Body, and the Spirit, coming unto us in His glorified flesh and in His Spirit, Alleluia! Let us remember that the entire Incarnation of our God is such that He assumed humanity into itself; therefore, the process of the Incarnation was brought to final and dramatic close here on Earth in the Assumption of Our Lady into the presence of the Blessed Trinity; the action of the Spirit in the Resurrection of Christ was brought to a perfect and loving finish when He as the Divine Spouse of Our Lady descended over her sacred Dormition, vivifying her in mystical union with her Son's Resurrection. O Christ, we adore you as our God; O Mary, we hail you as our Queen!

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, and Alleluia!

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy! Our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us. And after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed Fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O Clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray.


Almighty, everlasting God, who by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin-Mother Mary to become a worthy dwelling for Thy Son; grant that we who rejoice in her commemoration may, by her loving intercession, be delivered from present evils and from everlasting death. Amen, and Alleluia!

Let us praise the Lord;

Thanks be to God!

Holy Saturday Meditations

Today, all is silent. The God of the universe has died in the flesh, He has been laid in the tomb. All around the world, the Mass has been silenced; the Pure Sacrifice is laid aside; the Eucharist, hidden away; the Altar candles, put out. All is in the ground, all is dead, all is in solemn quietude.

Christ our God has died on the Cross for our salvation and the undoing of the Curse of Adam, becoming a Curse for us, and His Soul has left His Body. Mystery of mysteries! as Our Lord's Body is laying in the tomb dead according to the flesh and separated from His human soul, even so the eternal Word never ceases to be united to it, preserving it incorrupt. True Life exists in death - the victory of the human race! And that same creative and eternal Word that is united to His Body speaks profoundly to our souls in the quiet silence of the tomb, though His physical mouth is fallen silent.

Let us return to the tomb with Our Lord, the tomb we entered in our Baptism. Let us not just remember, but be mystically present there in our meditation. The tomb and the Virgin's womb speak one testimony and one Life and are one in the Life of Christ they embody and make present, the Life we clothed ourselves with in Baptism, the Life that comes not otherwise than though the sufferings of this life and our many crosses. Christ is hidden once for the development of His Life and unutterable communion with His mother, and again He is hidden in the tomb for the salvation of mankind; and these two joined, hidden periods in Our Lord's life help us to remember that His Life Divine and Human comes not to us nor is embodied in Him except through suffering and death. At our Baptism we are born, and we die; we die, and we are born anew to eternal life; we clothe ourselves with Christ our God, from His conception in the waters of His mother's womb to His death in the tomb, in order that in rising from our enlightening by the Spirit, the eternal Word would enlighten our minds and our hearts and come to be present in our soul; that Jesus Christ would be born, death and life, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, whole and entire, in the midst of us; and so in His glory transform us body and soul into His own Body and members of Him so intimately that no more intimate can be imagined.

And this Holy Saturday night, we proclaim with one accord: Alleluia! for Christ, the Light of the World, is rising as an Almighty Sun from the depths of the earth and the realm of the dead; behold, He arises in the East. Turn, turn, behold, the Lord God Almighty comes; let us greet the Rising Sun.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us sinners, love us we pray, turn us not away in your Divine and terrible wrath, but be our Divine Spouse instead. We remember you now, and on Divine Mercy Sunday, as our incredible Divine Lover; be present to us this Easter in a deeper way. We seek you and we love you; behold, it is written of your Resurrection in the sacred prophet: Let us press on to know the Lord. If we press on to know Him, His coming to us is assured, and He comes as the rain upon the earth, as the latter and former rains thereof. Amen, and come swiftly to us by your Spirit, Lord Jesus, as in heavy rain, as in a dry and thirsty land, where there is no water; for we pant for thirst of you O Jesus, we are a desert, let it rain your Spirit upon our hearts that we may know you more intimately. Spark fervent devotion to you in all of us, that we may teach sinners your ways, and many may be converted to you. And we pray that you come, whole and entire, through your Divine and Eucharistic Presence, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, and in your Spirit, for we thirst for you, O Lord our God.

We cling to the immortal and eternal power of the Resurrection of Jesus as our only Life.

Good Friday Meditations

Passages to foster a contemplative and meditative spirit on this hallowed day when Christ broke the curtain of His Body to reconcile us to His Father, and to poor out upon us poor children of wrath the riches of His life given through His Spirit, His Blood and Water, and His Body, the testimony of which is one in the Life given to us through the Eucharist. Let us remember that the humanity of Christ is the true Temple of God, the holy of holies, his Body being the curtain veiling His Divinity. He allowed the people that He had created, both Jews and Romans, to destroy the temple of His Body, to rend it asunder, in order to poor out the infinitely separate and holy God on a broken and sinful humanity. O necessary sin, O happy fault of Adam indeed; for through his sin, grace has far more abounded where there was evil; through sin God has broken the curtain to the holy of holies deep within the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, and allowed us to swim through that infinite Heart for all eternity as an infinite River of the Water of Life.

Let us remember the Cross, the true Tree of Life, the fruit of which we partake of for everlasting life in the Eucharist. St. John has told us that in the mystery of sin there are three centers and three prominent weaknesses that man succumbed to in original sin: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. In the primordial garden, the analogy of all sin and all that is wrong in our world, it is written that the first parents of our human race succumbed to the influence of the evil one through these same temptations which became our principle weaknesses. Eve, it is said, reasoned within herself that the fruit of this forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil was appealing to eat, was appealing to her eyes and to her senses, and was desirable to make one wise. It is said that the immortality that God Almighty destined man to have was blocked and taken from man by God who gave it, and that immortality which was pictured as the tree of life is blocked from man for age upon age. Until tonight. God is made manifest in the flesh for the renewal of eternal life and the restoration of the tree of life to all mankind.

But, what character does this Tree of Life take on? It comes as the absolute cancelation of the power of sin and death for those who now draw near to partake of its fruit. For the abolishment of sin and its fruit of death is also accompanied by the negation of the three weaknesses that gripped at the core of concupiscence. We behold the Cross of our Savior, Jesus Christ, let us take it in, and attempt to fathom its magnitude. The Lord reigns from the Tree, praised be He unto the ages of ages. On the Cross hung our Savior as its Fruit. This Fruit is not pleasing to the eye, it offends the eye, for as the divine prophet has said, 'So many look on in horror...was human beauty ever so defaced?' This Fruit is the annihilation of all lust, for as our Savior was crucified in the flesh but alive always in the Spirit, so those who draw near are purged of their bodily sins and their power is broken unto renewal in the Spirit. And lo! Its Fruit is foolishness to the Greeks, for who would ever have thought that a crucified Man could be desirable to make one wise - But to us who are being saved it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And accordingly, New Adam and New Eve stand at this Tree, partaking together of the suffering of sin, the Fruit, but dwelling in untouchable holiness all the while. Redeemer, have mercy on us! Coredemptrix, pray for us in His Presence. Let us draw near, for the Fruit of this Tree of Life is given at ever Mass, the cancellation of all debt and the abolishment of the three centers of concupiscence. The Divine Eucharist, the Fruit of the Tree of Life, is in our midst - let us adore Him, our Eucharistic Lord. Praised be God unto endless ages in the Church, His Mother, Bride, and Daughter. Let our solemn praise of heart be profound and new in conversion afresh, for our sin is removed! Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be white as snow - and I will remove the sins of that land in one day.

O Christ our God, glorious in your Cross, gateway to eternal life, our only Resurrection, we adore you. O you who did not abhor the waters of the All-Pure Virgin's womb for the renewal unto eternal life, but descended through the Holy Spirit and His Power, have mercy on us. For as the River of the Water of Life, your Spirit, descended in primordial time unto waters creating order out of the chaotic and dark earth, so now you have come through the the Spirit and the waters of the Holy and Sanctified Virgin's womb to make a new creation all who are mystically born of the same mother and the same womb in Baptism by the power of the Holy Spirit, children of God and Blessed Mary; new creations unto all ages; partakers of your Divinity, along with your mother, and sharers in the relationship Mary had with you, O Christ our God and our Divine Spouse.

O Christ our God, glorious in your wounds, we draw near to your Cross, have mercy on us. For never once did you, O Divine and Almighty Word of the Father, separate from your Body; accordingly we confess this mystery of you, O Christ: True Life in Death; praised be He unto all ages. You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth as a fountain of Divine Mercy and salvation for all the world. When you died, O Immortal  One, Hell quaked with fear, not understanding or fathoming the mystery - for you were united to your Body and your Soul, yet Body and Soul were separated in your Infinite Majesty for a time, so that you might descend unto the realm of the dead and save men and prophets. We confess your Mystery sublime, O One dead, and yet alive and Almighty. Hell could not hold you, O True Life, for you laid down your Life that you might take it up again. Your Body we confess did not receive corruption, for the Source of all Life was united all the while to it.

It is finished!

Purge out the leaven of sin, so that you may be a new loaf unto the Lord; for Christ our Pasch has been Sacrificed.