Timothy Joseph O'Mahony

“ Even as a form of divine acclaim its force was intensified, the feeling it evoked deepened, the ideas it suggested widened and elevated, and, above all, purified under the spiritualizing influence of Christian thought. As that thought's supreme expression of thanksgiving, joy, and triumph, "Alleluia" assumed a wider and deeper, a higher and holier, meaning than it earlier had in the liturgy of the Hebrew people. ”

“ Let all mortal flesh keep silence and stand with fear and trembling and ponder naught of itself earthly; for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Christ our God, cometh forward to be sacrificed and to be given for food to the faithful ”

“ Then, for Alleluiatic anthem, comes the somewhat later insertion known as the Cherubic hymn, before the Consecration: "Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim, and sing the holy hymn to the quickening Trinity, now lay by all worldly cares, that we may receive the King of Glory invisibly attended by the Angelic orders: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!" In the next most ancient of these primitive Greek liturgies of the East, that known as the Liturgy of St. James, we find the following rubric: "Priest: Peace be with all. People: And with thy Spirit. Singers: Alleluia!" ”