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Mass for Easter Sunday
1. The Bells of Solesmes (SAMPLE)
2. Resurrexi (SAMPLE)
3. Haec Dies
4. Pascha Nostrum - Alleluia
5. Victimae Paschali
6. Terra
7. Pascha Nostrum - Communion
8. Salva Dies
Mass for the First Sunday After Easter
9. Quasi Modo (SAMPLE)
10. In Die (SAMPLE)
11. Post Dies
12. Angelus
13. Mitte
14. Ad Coenam
15. Exultemus
16. Salva Festa Dies
Easter (Pascha)
Easter (called Pascha in the Eastern churches) is the most important religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion; this resurrection is celebrated on Easter Sunday. Easter also refers to the season of the church year called Eastertide or the Easter Season, the period of fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. The first week of the Easter Season is known as Easter Week or the Octave of Easter (Bright Week or Renewal Week in Eastern usage). Easter also marks the end of Lent, a season of fasting, prayer, and penance.
Easter is a moveable feast, meaning it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the vernal equinox. Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on March 21. The date of Easter in the West therefore varies between March 22 and April 25. Eastern Christianity bases its calculations on the Julian Calendar whose March 21 corresponds, during the 21st century, to April 3 in the Gregorian Calendar, in which calendar the celebration of Easter therefore varies between April 4 and May 8. In most years, the Eastern Pascha falls after the Western Easter, and it may be as much as five weeks later; occasionally, the two dates coincide.
Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover not only for much of its symbolism but also for its position in the calendar and, in most languages, its name. Pascha is a transliteration of a Greek word derived from the Hebrew pesach, both words meaning Passover. The origin of the English term "Easter" comes from the Germanic name for the month in which the Christian feast usually fell, which was named for the pagan goddess Eostre.
Perhaps the earliest extant primary source referencing Easter is a mid-2nd century Paschal homily attributed to Melito of Sardis, which characterizes the celebration as a well-established one. Evidence for another kind of annual Christian festival, the commemoration of martyrs, begins to appear at about the same time. But while martyrs' days were celebrated on fixed dates in the local solar calendar, the date of Easter was fixed by means of the local Jewish lunisolar calendar. This is consistent with the annual celebration of Christ's resurrection having begun during Christianity's earliest, Jewish period.
St. Peter's Abbey: Solesmes, France
Solesmes Abbey (Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Solesmes) is a Benedictine monastery in Solesmes, France, famous as the source of the restoration of Benedictine life in France after the Revolution.
It was founded in 1010 as a Benedictine priory. Maintaining a mostly quiet existence for centuries, it began a slow decline in the 17th century, and was dissolved in 1791 during the French Revolution.
In the 1830s a locally-born priest, Prosper Guéranger, inspired by the vision of a restored monastic life in France, acquired the remaining buildings for a new Benedictine community. By 1837 Solesmes was elevated to the rank of an abbey and made the head of the newly created French Benedictine Congregation, now the Solesmes Congregation within the Benedictine Confederation. The abbey was closed several times by French legislation, and between 1901 and 1922 the monks were forced into exile in England. The community survived those trials and those of two world wars and is still at Solesmes.
The abbey is noted for its crucial contribution to the advancement of the Roman Catholic liturgy through its work in Gregorian chant: restoration of melodies, scholarly research, publication of liturgical books for the Church, and recordings of the liturgy.
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