Alleluia: What does it mean?

"Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance... Therefore, Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the Feast of feasts... Easter is the Great Sunday. The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subjected to him." CCC 1168-9

Since Sunday, we have been congratulating Our Lady, as advised by St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Church itself has recommended to us how to do so-- the Regina Coeli.

Queen of heaven, rejoice! Alleluia!

For he whom you did merit to bear. Allelulia!

Has risen as he said. Alleluia!

What a great prayer! Especially, with the addition of the Alleluia, the prayer becomes a prayer of joy and exultation.

But, what does "alleluia" mean? especially now that we repeat it so often, even at the end of Mass?

Alleluia is from "Hallelu-jah". And hallelu is from hallel and hillel which means "praise be to you." And jah or yah refers to Yahweh.

So Alleluia means Praise to you, O God! or Praise the Lord!!! It's the ancient Catholic way of saying what Protestants love to say: Praise the Lord!!!

God's eros is supreme agape!

In Benedict's Lenten message he says:

Dear brothers and sisters, let us look at Christ pierced in the Cross! He is the unsurpassing revelation of God's love...

On the Cross, it is God Himself who begs the love of His creature: He is thirsty for the love of every one of us.

The Apostle Thomas recognized Jesus as "Lord and God" when he put his hand into the wound of His side.

Not surprisingly, many of the saints found in the Heart of Jesus the deepest expression of this mystery of love. One could rightly say that the revelation of God's eros toward man is, in reality, the supreme expression of His agape.

Wow! That last statement which I just italicized is perhaps one of those great words of wisdom which everyone should know of.

This brilliant Pope is telling us the deepest secrets of God! And the deepest secret of how we are to live!

This means that one of the best things to do is to see God's love in the dying Christ. Why? because the revelation of God's eros toward man is, in reality, the supreme expression of His agape.

The greatest gift that God gives us (agape is about giving) is to tell us that he passionately wants us for himself (eros is about wanting to be together).

Isn't that wonderful? It's such wonderful news that the Pope exclaims next: only the love that unites the free gift of oneself with the impassioned desire for reciprocity instills a joy, which eases the heaviest of burdens.

St. Josemaria expressed God's eros this way:

Look how gently the Lord invites us. His words have human warmth; they are the words of a person in love: "I have called you by your name. You are mine." God, who is beauty and greatness and wisdom, declares that we are his, that we have been chosen as the object of his infinite love.