 These words come from Helen Waddell’s translation of the poem “Solus ad Victimam” by Peter Abelard. (Another translation of this poem, and I think a less vivid one, appears as no. 68 in The Hymnal 1940.) There is a magnificent setting of Waddell’s text by Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988), one of the most important composers of English cathedral music in the 20th century. This setting will be the Offertory Anthem on April 2, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, sometimes known as Passion Sunday.
These words come from Helen Waddell’s translation of the poem “Solus ad Victimam” by Peter Abelard. (Another translation of this poem, and I think a less vivid one, appears as no. 68 in The Hymnal 1940.) There is a magnificent setting of Waddell’s text by Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988), one of the most important composers of English cathedral music in the 20th century. This setting will be the Offertory Anthem on April 2, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, sometimes known as Passion Sunday. Abelard intended his text for Holy Saturday, the day that begins in grief, almost numbness following the intensity of Good Friday, but ends with the equally intense joy and triumph over death in the Resurrection: This is the night of tears, the three days space,
Sorrow abiding of the eventide,
Until the daybreak with the risen Christ,
And hearts that sorrowed shall be satisfied.
The lectionary for 5 Lent is concerned not so much with the events of the Passion—that is the subject for the Holy Week liturgies—but of their significance and implications. The Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,” (Heb. 5:8-9)
and the Gospel of the Day records Our Lord as saying “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (John 12:31-32)
Abelard’s Holy Saturday meditation is entirely appropriate for this day, spanning as it does both the grief and the triumph. But, of course, the grief must be gone through, and nothing helps us to experience its intensity like the high drama of the Holy Week liturgies. On Palm Sunday, the excitement of the Triumphal Entry quickly turns somber with the chanting of the liturgical Passion (St. Mark this year, with the crowd choruses that I wrote three years ago). On Maundy Thursday there is the muted joy at the giving of the Blessed Sacrament, the solemn re-enactment of Our Lord washing the disciples’ feet (to the accompaniment of Maurice Duruflé’s delicate “Ubi caritas”), and all the time the knowledge that His betrayal is at hand. The Offertory Anthem will be John Davison’s “Tristis est anima mea” (My soul is sorrowful unto death). On Good Friday the music is especially austere, but few can fail to be moved by the singing of the Reproaches (”O my people, what have I done unto thee…”) as we come forward to reverence the Cross. I have long felt that the most glorious of all these liturgies is the Great Vigil of Easter, and I always wish that more parishioners would come to experience its power, beginning in darkness and ending in a blaze of Resurrection light with the celebration of the First Mass of Easter. This is truly the cardinal liturgy, and I invoke the literal meaning of that word, derived from the Latin for “hinge”, the point on which everything turns. So may our hearts share in thine anguish, Lord,
That they may sharers of thy glory be:
Heavy with weeping may the three days pass,
To win the laughter of thine Easter Day.
Photo of Pascha at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem from Directions to Orthodoxy. |
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