I finally found it!!
We are members of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter — officially, now, since our oldest son received his Sacrament of First Communion in the Ordinariate this Divine Mercy Sunday! The Ordinariate is the structure set up by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI to welcome Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Methodists back into the Catholic Church using a liturgy that is much more familiar to them, but is fully and faithfully Catholic. We’ve been attending our local Ordinariate parish for the past few years, partly because, as a convert myself (although not from any denomination), I immediately felt at home in the atmosphere of excitement and devotion the parish has, and partly because the liturgy is such a beautiful combination of the older traditions and our own familiar English. ;)
However, sometimes this causes a difficulty for us when we need to learn something new! The Ordinariate is not large or widely known, so it’s sometimes harder to find resources for learning the liturgy.
Our Sunday Mass ends at noon every week, and after the recessional the pastor and altar serves always come back and lead the Angelus by the statue of Mary at the front of the church. Of course, in Eastertide, though, the Angelus is replaced by the Regina Caeli. But in the Ordinariate, it’s in English — and not just any English — in special, Saint-James’-Bible-style thee’s and thou’s.
And I had no idea what we were singing, Lol.
I wanted to add it into our morning basket time so the kids and I could learn it, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on the internet! Youtube is sorely lacking in Ordinariate prayers. ;)
But today I found it. Thank you to the liturgy geeks (in the best way possible) of the New Liturgical Movement website, for being interested in every tiny detail of an Ordinariate Easter Mass! Here’s what they reported:
“After the distribution of Holy Communion, the Prayer after Communion was sung, the Solemn Blessing was given, and the hymn Jesus Christ is risen today was sung as the altar party lined-up before singing, to the same tune, these words – known well to high church Anglicans as a metrical Regina Coeli:
Joy to thee, O Queen of Heaven, alleluia!
he whom thou wast meet to bear, alleluia!
as he promised, hath aris’n, alleluia!pour for us to God thy prayer, alleluia!”
The “metrical Regina Coeli” — who knew?
And I knew that tune was from a familiar hymn, but I just couldn’t put two and two together!
So I’m bookmarking this here, in case any of you dear readers are also nerdily interested in random facts of liturgy, and also so I can easily find it for tomorrow’s morning basket. ;)
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