The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give him thanks and praise.
It is truly good and right,
with all powers of heart and mind,
and with the service of our lips,
to praise the invisible God,
the Father almighty, and his only Son
our Lord Jesus Christ,
who paid the debt of Adam for us to the eternal Father,
and erased the stain of ancient guilt
by his blood poured out in love.
For this is the Paschal festival
in which Christ, the true Lamb was slain,
and the door-posts hallowed by his blood,
by which you first brought our ancestors,
the children of Israel, out of Egypt,
and led them through the Red Sea with dry feet.
This is the night
which cleared away the darkness of sin with a pillar of light.
This is the night
which restores grace and unites believers in Christ
in holiness throughout the world,
separated from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin.
This the night
in which Christ broke the bonds of death
and ascended from the grave as a Conqueror.
Life itself would be no blessing to us
without his redemption.
O wondrous love!
To redeem your servants you gave up your Son.
This holy night,
drives off offences, washes away sins,
restores innocence to the fallen and joy to the sad.
O truly blessed night,
which spoiled the Egyptians and enriched the Hebrews —
the night in which heaven and earth are reconciled!
We pray therefore, O Lord,
that you would preserve your servants
in the peace and joy of this Easter happiness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Source: Gregorian, freely modified from Ancient Collects, ed. William Bright, p. 52.2. The New Ancient Collects, #159.
