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| | Alleluia |
 | | 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. |
 | | The only difference in regard to it between those of the East and West is that in the former it is still, as it seems at first to have been generally, used all through the year, even during Lent, and in Offices for the dead, as the Christian cry of victory over sin and death. |
| www.catholicity.com /encyclopedia/a/alleluia.html (1109 words) |
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