More of This Feature • Part 2: In English

Related Resources • No está aquí, pues ha resucitado (the Easter story in Spanish, from the Gospel of Matthew)

From Other Guides • Celebrate Easter (includes Easter Articles from numerous About Guides)

It is celebrated nearly everywhere in Latin America and Spain with religious observances and various types of processions. In some areas, the celebrations can become quite elaborate. Those in places such as Antigua, Guatemala, and Ayacucho, Peru, draw celebrants from throughout the world. In most of the Spanish-speaking world, Easter rivals if not surpasses Christmas as a time for celebration. You can learn more about such celebrations from other About Guides by following the links in the box at right; you can also learn more about how various traditions within Christianity understand the holiday.

Regardless of where or how it is celebrated, there is perhaps no hymn for Christians that better expresses the spirit of the Easter season than Charles Wesley's Christ the Lord is Risen Today, shown below in a Spanish translation. In case you need help understanding the words, a vocabulary list follows the song. It lists the song's words other than cognates and basic vocabulary (although beginners may not be familiar with the verb conjugations used).

As you well may know if you've ever tried translating songs from one language to another, getting something approaching an exact translation of a hymn is challenging at best, and more so if you're trying to maintain a rhyme scheme. Sometimes, as was done with this song, the translators do well to convey the themes and general thoughts of the song rather than seeking a literal interpretation. Go to the following page if you'd like to see how a translation of the Spanish into English differs from the English version of the song.

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