Ash Wednesday to Pentecost
Freed (Song 1)
- Freed from the dark, He looked upon the dawn
To where the posts for Crucifixion stood;
Then saw the women, burdened and forlorn,
Their minds still set on spices, stone and wood:
He risen in glory, they still steeped in gloom,
He all the world, they in their Master's tomb. - Put by the winding sheet for His sad bones
With angels in attendance at his side,
He heard their anxious words about the stone,
Then wonder at the entrance opened wide:
They had seen Lazarus risen from the dead
But had forgotten what their Lord had said. - They fled; but Mary could not bear to move,
His absent body magnifying grief;
He greeted her and she was bathed in love,
The first of all our race with such belief:
And even though the angels shone so bright
She shone yet more in Resurrected light. - He conquered death that we might live in Him,
We in new life now praise our risen king,
For we are brighter than the cherubim
Blessed with such Grace only His death could bring:
The Lord is risen! Proclaim it near and far!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!