An extended anthem for SATB mixed voices with divisi, organ, brass, harp, and percussion suitable for Easter season and festivals. Please note: No choral score exists for this piece.
Lyrics
Rex sempiterne caelitum, rerum Creator omnium,
Aequalis ante saecula semper Parenti Filius:
Nascente qui mundo faber imaginem vultus tui
Tradens Adamo, nobilem limo jugasti spiritum.
Cum livor et fraus daemonis foedasset humanum genus:
Tu, carne amictus, perditam forman reformas artifex.
Qui natus olim e Virgine, nunc e sepulcro nasceris,
Tecumque nos a mortuis jubes sepultos surgere.
Qui, pastor aeternus, gregem aqua lavas baptismatis:
Haec est lavacrum mentium: haec est sepulcrum criminum.
Nobis diu qui debitae Redemptor affixus cruci,
Nostrae dedisti prodigus pretium salutis sanguinem.
Ut sis perenne mentibus Paschale, Jesu, gaudium,
A morte dira criminum vitae renatos libera.
Deo Patri sit gloria et Filio, qui a mortuis
Surrexit, ac Paraclito, in sempiterna saecula.
Eternal King of the blessed, Creator of all things
and the Father’s co-equal Son from all eternity,
when the world was at its beginning you created Adam
and gave him the image of your own likeness,
joining a soul of noble destiny with slime of the earth.
But when an envious, deceitful enemy
had covered mankind with the filth of sin,
you clothed yourself in man’s flesh, and,
a Creator once again, gave mane back the beauty he had lost.
Once you were born of a Virgin. Now, you are born from the tomb,
you command us, buried in sin, to rise with you from the dead.
As our eternal Shepherd, you wash your flock in the waters of baptism,
where souls are cleansed and sins are buried.
And as our Redeemer, fastened to the cross that we ought to have suffered,
you gave your Blood to the last drop as the price of our salvation;
that you, O Jesus, may be an everlasting Paschal joy to our hearts,
deliver us, reborn to life, from a dire death of sin.
To God the Father be glory, and to the Son who rose from the dead,
and to the Paraclete, for ever and ever.
—trans. The Rev. Joseph Connelly, M.A.
Archival Recording
This is an archival recording made in 2002 with J. Melvin Butler leading the Saint Mark’s Cathedral Choir and instruments.
This work was edited and engraved by Carl Crosier in 2002 but never published. The text is from a Roman Breviary hymn for use at Matins during Eastertide. The title has been modified to reflect accepted spelling of caelitum (from coelitum).
