Celebrate a joyous and happy Easter with this gallery of vintage Easter blessings and prayers from more than a century ago! You can also save and share the original vintage images of each blessing page for dining table place cards or other festive favors.
Dawn: An Easter blessing
Look up to where the hills
are flushed
With dawn’s red pencilings
Look up to where an angel goes
On silver-flashing wings;
Look up to where the lark of morn
Is soaring, whilst he sings.
Look up! the clouds of yesterday
Have vanished with the night;
Like some sweet dream that
follows toil
The present greets the sight;
Look up! the dawn of dawns has come
In majesty and might.
Easter Prayer: Easter Morning
The bells in the steeples are sending
Glad messages out on the air;
For the night is ended forever,
And the day breaks everywhere:
O night that was long and lonely!
O day that will know no care!
Above the vibrant bell-music
The perfumes of flowers rise —
The incense from natures green altars,
Ascending like truth to the skies:
O incense sweet and prayer-breathing
From hearts that adore and are wise!
O hearts of the world that are many
As stars in the heavens above!
Christ wants you, and needs you,
and seeks you
In charity, pity and love:
O hearts of the world, He forgives you,
And sends you his peace-bearing dove!
An Easter Prayer: My Gift of Lilies
I gathered the lilies from hillside and vale,
The beautiful lilies of Christ;
And thought of the time when the
angel of God
With the Virgin held holiest tryst —
The time in the mystical long ago
That is olden and far away,
But comes to all with its memoried charm
To gladden the Easter Day.
I send you the beautiful lilies of Christ,
The lilies of solace and light;
And may their white chalices breathe you their peace
At morning, at noontime, and night;
And sift their sweet anther-dust over your dreams,
To steep them in beauty & shine —
I send you the beautiful lilies of Christ
The messengers of the Divine.
The Divine Call
I AM the Resurrection and the Life!
The bread and water and the truth ye seek;
I shall not give denial to thy wants,
Nor be unmindful of thy many needs.
The wheat and corn and every growing thing
Yea, e’en a thing so lowly as the grass —
Are part of that sweet food I offer thee:
I am the Resurrection and the Life!
Come unto me, my children whom I love —
Be not afraid that I shall turn from ye;
My love is vast, my arms will fold ye tight,
My kiss will cleanse thy being of unrest.
I dwelt amongst ye, and I know full well
The conflict and the strife that is thy lot;
Through all the days, and nights, and years I call.
Gome unto me, my children whom I love!
Sundown: Traditional Easter blessing
The sunset, like a smoldering forge
In deepening shadows glows,
Upon the fields the evening star
Its lambent splendor throws,
And now the lovely Easter Day
Is sinking to repose.
The mellow deep-toned angelus
Is pealing far away;
Come let us wander hand in hand
Out in the dying day.
The love that lives within our hearts
Will teach us how to pray.
‘Tis just a mile across the hills
Unto the Gothic fane,
That grandly lifts its spire of faith
Above the misted main.
There ‘neath the elms the blessed dead
Through toilless years have lain.
An Easter Prayer: Easter Evening
The music of the organ steals
Adown the aisles in mellow peals,
The anthem from the choir floats
From many silver-fluted throats.
‘Twere if a stream went murmuring by
And birds were caroling on high,
Whilst rose leaves floated through the air,
And shed their redolence of prayer.
The homeward path winds dusk between
The wild thorn hedges budding green,
Then o’er the star-bathed fields it goes,
Past orchards white with blossoms’ snows.
We do not speak — the silence holds
A meaning that no speech unfolds:
We merely clasp each other’s hand,
That heart and heart may understand.
O happy days of Eastertide!
Wth us forevermore abide,
And fill with kindliness and cheer
The hearts of those who doubt & fear.
Thou art the sun-bathed, lilied shrine
Of faith matured in love divine,
The radiant portals open wide —
O happy day of Eastertide!
Sunny Days: A traditional Easter blessing
Easter Blessing: God Bless Thee, Dear!
God bless thee, dear! this Eastertide,
Wherever thou may be;
My thoughts go out across the miles
In tenderness to thee.
I trust the One who rose today
Will keep thee in His care,
And flood thy life with happiness,
And grant thine every prayer.
God bless thee, dear! — there are no words
More eloquent than these
Or friendships crystal pledge of peace,
That knows no bitter lees.
Thy kindliness and sympathy
Have been a golden stair,
That led me up ambition’s slope
And crowned me victor there.
The Passing On: An Easter blessing
The Aspen Tree
Aspen tree, aspen tree, why do you quiver,
And tremble and whisper so
On mountain and hillside, by roadway and river,
When never a breeze doth blow?
Why So you sigh as if you were weeping,
Forsaken and unconsoled,
When all of your kindred are happily sleeping
Or waking to daylight’s gold?
Far back in a time that is vague & olden
As a pyramid covered with moss,
My wood was axed till its sap dripped golden,
And they fashioned me into a cross
Whereon the flesh of a King was riven,
Whilst loved ones stood weeping by;
But I feel when the dead of the world are forgiven,
I, too, shall be called on high.
An Easter Blessing: Predestination
It could not pass, it was to be.
The grief in fair Gethsemane,
The scourging and the mocking cries
Ascending, to the pitying skies,
The crown of thorns and dripping blood
That stained the cross of aspen wood —
It could not pass, it was to be.
The agony on Calvary!
It cannot pass, it is to be,
Each life must know Gethsemane,
And tread alone the narrow way
That leads from darkness into day,
And wear the crown of cruel thorns,
And bear the cross at many morns —
It cannot pass, it is to be,
Each life must bleed on Calvary!
It will not pass, it is to be,
The city by the sapphire sea.
The lilied wand that all will hold
To ope’ the gates of jaspered gold.
The greeting and the welcoming.
Of myriad angels on the wing —
It will not pass, it is to be,
God’s kingdom after Calvary!
Behold the Man! An Easter prayer
The Assumption Lily
Night and Morn: An Easter prayer
Limned in the afterglow
Three crosses of aspen rise
And bleeding & thorn-crowned
The Prince of forgiveness lies;
And O the yearning love
That turns in His dying eyes!
Over the dawn-flushed hills
An angel is winging low,
As up the hillside path
The sorrowing faithful go;
And by the riven tomb
The angel waits in the glow.
“He Whom ye seek is gone!”
The angel of Heaven says —
“Gone in guise of the flesh,
But thine in spirit always.
He Whom ye seek ye’ll find
At the ending of earth’s days!”
