The Easter Anthems: a morning salutation of Paschal joy

One particular liturgical offering which I have missed saying and hearing this Easter, because of the Eucharistic fast during the time of Covid-19, has been Cranmer's preface for the Easter octave:

Upon Easter Day, and seven days after. 
BUT chiefly are we bound to praise thee for the glorious Resurrection of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord: for he is the very Paschal Lamb, which was offered for us, and hath taken away the sin of the world; who by his death hath destroyed death, and by his rising to life again hath restored to us everlasting life. Therefore with Angels, &c.

It is a profoundly rich proclamation of the Easter Gospel.  When I say "Cranmer's preface" it is, of course, his translation of the ancient preface of the Latin West, retained in the Latin BCP 1560:

ET te quidem omni tempore, sed in hoc potissimum die gloriosius prædicare, cum Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus. Ipse enim est vere Agnus, qui abstulit peccata mundi : qui mortem nostram moriendo destruxit, et vitam resurgendo reparavit.

Here are words of praise with which Christians in the Latin, Augustinian West greeted Easter Day over centuries, given expression by Cranmer in a noble vernacular.

It is not the only such example of traditional Latin texts for Easter Day and its octave translated by Cranmer.  The Prayer Book collect of Easter Day is that provided in the Latin rite:

DEUS, qui per unigenitum tuum æternitatis nobis aditum, devicta morte, reserasti, vota nostra quæ præveniendo aspiras, etiam adjuvando prosequere. 

With the collect of Easter Day and Week, then, we are contemplating the Paschal triumph with words which have shaped Christians of the Latin West over many centuries.

What I have particularly treasured this year, however, has been the Easter Anthems.  Here too Cranmer translated part of the traditional Latin Paschal liturgy, Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus alleluia, expanding this in 1552, with further expansion by the revisers in 1662.  1552/59 used the anthem in place of the Venite on Easter Day, a practice continued with the fuller anthem in 1662.  The Easter Anthems reveal how the themes of the proper preface for Easter are grounded in the Apostle's proclamation of the Lord's Resurrection: Passover Lamb, sin atoned for, death overcome, life restored.  In other words, while in this Easter octave, during a time of Eucharistic fast, we may not hear the glorious words of the Easter preface, the Easter Anthems draw us into the Paschal joy animating the preface.

As mentioned, 1662 directs that the Easter Anthems replace the Venite on Easter Day.  In Ireland 1926, PECUSA 1928, and Scotland 1929, the Easter Anthems are said throughout Easter Week and on Low Sunday, reflecting the use of the proper preface.  This is an excellent example of intelligent and meaningful revision of 1662, ensuring that the riches of the Easter Anthems shape our praise and prayer at Mattins throughout the octave.  At the same time, however, it avoids the rather artificial practice in many contemporary alternatives of using the Easter Anthems throughout the Easter season, attempting to  unrealistically sustain the high praise and joy of the octave for forty days, and thereby losing the ancient distinctive character of the octave.

In late medieval English practice, the anthem Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus alleluia was used before Mattins of Easter Day in a ceremony 'retrieving' the reserved Sacrament from a 'sepulchre'.  Needless to say, there is much about this ceremony which is theologically dubious, not the least of which is identifying Christ in the tomb with the sacramental sign of His life-giving presence and then suggesting a localized presence on Easter Day through a procession of the host.  Cranmer's re-working of the anthem demonstrates the concerns of a Reformed Catholicity, ensuring that our celebration of the Resurrection is not focused upon the sacramental sign and a localized presence.  Sparrow and Wheatly both describe the Easter Anthems as a "morning salutation" embodying the proclamation of the first disciples, "Christ is risen".  As Sparrow puts it:

we are directed this day to rejoyce with them for the Rising again of our Lord, and to express our joy in the same words that they then did.

The Easter Anthems, then, are a means of drawing us into the apostolic confession of, and joy in, the Lord's Resurrection.  May their words echo throughout this Octave, renewing us in Easter joy.