Lionandox has been relatively dead for about seven months now.

What with work and family! What with life and its accompanying travails and disillusionments! What with all the vain worry about the world, the government, the economy, war, and death!

I do not even pause to mention the chipping paint in my house or on the deck! I make no reference to the ceaseless concerns about my home appliances. Why did my refrigerator die on Holy Saturday of all days?!

And let’s not even dwell for a single moment on the steady deterioration of the tires of my automobiles! Forget about the multiple cracked windshields that are peculiar to residents of Colorado. Forget about the hail damage that makes Colorado residents victims of those suffering from among the highest auto insurance rates in the country!

No! We will not even allude to these unpleasantries even by the figure of speech that we would-be rhetoricians know by the delightful term apophasis!

Let us simply content ourselves with the ugly fact that lionandox has been rather dead for about seven months.

What better occasion to return to life than Easter?

To be honest, I can’t think of one.

And what is more restorative, what is more energizing, what is more lifegiving than an Easter Feast?

I wish I could say that my Lenten observance was especially severe this year. Severe enough to make me especially deserving of the Easter Feast. If there is anyone else who feels he or she could have engaged in a slightly more severe Lenten season, let us console ourselves with the mere statement that grace is gratuitous. Grace is undeserved. God showers his mercy on us without our meriting it.

Now just to be clear, (one cannot be too careful these days!) Lionandox does not deny that the good actions of Christians are without any merit! But I can safely avouch for the fact that just as my Lenten observance did not merit anything near the grace of the reception of the Holy Eucharist at the 8 AM Mass, nor did it merit the blessing of the Easter Brunch or dinner of which I was made to partake!

But you might be thinking “That’s not enough! One cannot just Feast at Easter upon the mere excuse of Christ’s grace being gratuitous!”

Well, there is one thing I did that perhaps you did not, you Pharisee!

Did you sing the Gloria from “Mass I” at a pitch at least a third higher than is humanly possible for most male voices?

(Here is what “Gloria I” sounds like- but sung at a regular pitch)

I did!

And I am not to blame for that. For some reason I have an edition of the Kyriale put together by Achille P. Braggers that is set for high voices.

I might as well share the entire musical itinerary of our Easter Sunday Morning Mass just to pacify those of you who still have objections to my undeserved Easter feasting.

Easter Sunday Morning Musical Itinerary

After arriving at the Church at least five (if not six!) minutes early, I quickly set up the keyboard for one of its two organ settings. It’s true I do not play a Schlicker or a Skinner or even a Casavant pipe organ every Sunday. I only play a Kawai, or a Yamaha or a Hyundai or something like that which was really meant to be a piano substitute but does have precisely two organ settings: “Organ” and “Organ Tutti.”

I prefer the simple “Organ” setting and just pretend that I am sitting at the console at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice or perhaps at Notre Dame de Paris. Granted that those organs are a bit more complex, nonetheless, the electrotonic keyboard I play was assuredly designed with such organs in mind.

Two minutes before Mass, to set the atmosphere, I commenced a spirit-inspired improvisation of something cheerful and grand (in my own mind) when I realized the lector had just begun to make some pre-Mass announcements about upcoming events at the parish. Naturally, I kindly deferred to the sound of his amplified voice and brought my ill fated improvisation to an unnatural conclusion.

Then the bell rang and the Schola intoned “Resurrexi” which is always the way to intone the introit on Easter Sunday Morning. Things were off to a good start! We sang the Kyrie from Hassler’s Missa Secunda. Then the exorbitantly high Gloria! The rest of the music proceeded apace: Haec Dies, Alleluia-Pascha Nostrum, Victimae Paschali, Terra Tremuit, and the Pascha Nostrum at Communion. We threw in a couple motets – to wit: a Regina Coeli by some Spaniard with the last name of Salazar, and another well known Regina Coeli by Gregor Aichinger. The women in the schola sang O Filii et Filiae to fill out the extra time for reception of Holy Communion. Finally, we sang Jesus Christ is Risen Today!

So all in all, it is my conviction that such a musical itinerary was deserving of some kind of reward despite my lackluster Lenten observance!

And so, returning from Mass to the breakfast table was a sight for sore eyes.

Out here on the arid high plains flowers take on a special significance!

Now for dinner!

Beef Wellington with risotto.

Happy Easter!