The Reproaches: A divine lament for Good Friday

Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!

—Micah 6:3

The Reproaches (Latin: Improperia), also known by the first phrase of their refrain, “Popule meus” (O My People), are a series of antiphons and responses used in Good Friday liturgies across all three branches of Christianity. The text contrasts Old Testament stories of God’s goodness with humanity’s enactment of evil against God’s Son. Whereas God graciously delivered his people from death time and again throughout history, they delivered his Son to death—death on a cross. Thus God reproaches us, his beloved creatures, for our fatal rejection of Christ, his greatest gift, lamenting that we have spurned his love.

The lyrics are reproduced below (the side-by-side formatting with English translation on the right is best viewed on a computer screen), followed by four musical settings, chosen from among dozens. In the present Roman Rite, the roman-style text is sung by a cantor and the italicized text by a choir, and the lines of the Trisagion (“Thrice Holy”), the ancient hymn that follows the first improperium, are sung by two halves of a choir in alternation—the first singing in Greek, the second in Latin. Composers working outside that context, however, may assign the sections differently.

(Related post: “Blood and Tears”)

Fra Angelico_Man of Sorrows
Fra Angelico (Italian, ca. 1395–1455), Man of Sorrows, ca. 1440. Fresco, Cell 39, Convent of San Marco, Florence. Photo: Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP.
Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
Aut in quo contristavi te?
Responde mihi.

Quia eduxi te de terra Aegypti:
parasti Crucem Salvatori tuo.

   Hagios o Theos.
      Sanctus Deus.
   Hagios Ischyros.
      Sanctus fortis.
   Hagios Athanatos, eleison himas.
      Sanctus immortalis, miserere nobis.

Quia eduxi te per desertum quadraginta annis:
et manna cibavi te, et introduxi te in terram satis bonam:
parasti Crucem Salvatori tuo.
Hagios . . .

Quid ultra debui facere tibi, et non feci?
Ego quidem plantavi te vineam meam speciosissimam:
et tu facta es mihi nimis amara:
aceto namque sitim meam potasti:
et lancea perforasti latus Salvatori tuo.
Hagios . . .

Ego propter te flagellavi Aegyptum cum primogenitis suis:
et tu me flagellatum tradidisti.
Popule meus . . .

Ego te eduxi de Aegypto, demerso Pharone in mare Rubrum:
et tu me tradidisti principibus sacerdotum.
Popule meus . . .

Ego ante te aperui mare:
et tu aperuisti lancea latus meum.
Popule meus . . .

Ego ante te praeivi in columna nubis:
et tu me duxisti ad praetorium Pilati.
Popule meus . . .

Ego te pavi manna in desertum:
et tu me cedisti alapis et flagellis.
Popule meus . . .

Ego te potavi aqua salutis de petra:
et tu me potasti felle et aceto.
Popule meus . . .

Ego propter te Chananeorum reges percussi:
et tu percussisti arundine caput meum.
Popule meus . . .

Ego dedi tibi sceptrum regale:
et tu dedisti capiti meo spineam coronam.
Popule meus . . .

Ego te exaltavi magna virtute:
et tu me suspendisti in patibulo crucis.
Popule meus . . .

O my people, what have I done to thee?
Or how have I offended you?
Answer me.

Because I led thee out of the land of Egypt:
thou hast prepared a cross for thy Savior.

   O holy God!
      O holy God!
   O holy strong One!
      O holy strong One!
   O holy and immortal, have mercy upon us.
      O holy and immortal, have mercy upon us.

Because I led thee through the desert for forty years:
and fed thee with manna, and brought thee into a land exceeding good:
thou hast prepared a cross for thy Savior.
O holy God! . . .

What more ought I to have done for thee, that I have not done?
I planted thee, indeed, my most beautiful vineyard:
and thou hast become exceeding bitter to me:
for in my thirst thou gavest me vinegar to drink:
and with a spear thou hast pierced the side of thy Savior.
O holy God! . . .

For thy sake I scourged the firstborn of Egypt:
Thou hast given me up to be scourged.
O my people . . .

I led thee out of Egypt, having drowned Pharaoh in the Red Sea:
and thou hast delivered me to the chief priests.
O my people . . .

I opened the sea before thee:
and thou hast opened my side with a spear.
O my people . . .

I went before thee in a pillar of cloud:
and thou hast led me to the judgment hall of Pilate.
O my people . . .

I fed thee with manna in the desert:
and thou hast assaulted me with blows and scourges.
O my people . . .

I gave thee the water of salvation from the rock:
and thou hast given me gall and vinegar to drink.
O my people . . .

For thy sake I struck the kings of the Canaanites:
and thou hast struck my head with a reed.
O my people . . .

I gave thee a royal scepter:
and thou hast given a crown of thorns for my head.
O my people . . .

I exalted thee with great strength:
and thou hast hanged me on the gibbet of the cross.
O my people . . .

1. “Popule meus” by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1585)

First up, a traditional setting of the Latin by the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria (ca. 1548–1611) [previously], performed by Ensemble Invocatio under the direction of Daniel Knaggs in 2022 at Seminary Church in Warsaw, Poland. The soloist is Łukasz Dziuba. This four-part motet is the most widely performed setting of the Reproaches.

2. “The Reproaches” by John Sanders (1984)

This setting in English by the British composer John Sanders (1933–2003) has become standard repertoire for many English cathedral and church choirs. Sanders first wrote it in 1984 for a Good Friday service at Gloucester Cathedral, where he served as organist, but it wasn’t published until 1993. It’s performed here by the Ely Cathedral Choir, conducted by Sarah MacDonald, from 2018. Whereas Victoria scored his setting for four voices (SATB), Sanders scored his for eight (SSAATTBB), creating more complex harmonies, including dissonance.

3. “Popule meus” by Filipe Faria and Sérgio Peixoto (2015)

In 1999 Portuguese composers Filipe Faria (b. 1976) and Sérgio Peixoto (b. 1974) founded Sete Lágrimas ECMC (Early and Contemporary Music Consort) to create dialogues between medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque music on the one hand and contemporary music on the other. Their “Popule meus,” which includes just the opening refrain, is from their Missa Mínima, a minimalistic setting for two voices and recorder of the five parts of the Catholic Mass, along with other important liturgical texts. They began composing it in 1999, put it on the back burner for a while, and returned to it later, completing it in 2015. In this 2016 recording, the singers are Faria and Peixoto. The melodic embellishment on the syllable -sta in contristavi (literally “saddened” but more often translated in this song as “offended” or “distressed”) creates a tense quivering effect, a climax before the languid return to the title phrase and a petering off with “Responde mihi.”

4. “The Reproaches” by Paul Zach (2021)

American singer-songwriter Paul Zach wrote this condensed version of the Reproaches with frequent collaborator Kate Bluett [previously], which puts the words in the voice of the people, who assume and repent of their responsibility for Jesus’s death—for no matter our temporal or geographical proximity to the event, it was our sin that led him to and held him on the cross. Transferring the speaker from God to the Christian for the whole duration helps make the song more suitable for congregational singing, as it can then function as a corporate confession.

You delivered us from Pharaoh;
We delivered you to death.
You gave manna in the desert;
We gave a crown of thorns for your head.

You brought us out of slavery
Into the promised land;
We brought you up to Calvary
And pierced your feet and hands.

Holy God, Holy Mighty One,
Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy, mercy,
Have mercy on us.

You opened up the Red Sea;
We opened up your side.
“Come down, come down,” we mocked you;
“My God, my God,” you cried.

Holy God, Holy Mighty One,
Holy Immortal One,
Have mercy, mercy,
Have mercy on us.

Zach told me he’s not fully satisfied with the song and is working on a rewrite that he may release in 2024. Nonetheless, I really like what he and Bluett have created here! And I appreciate how it brings the Reproaches into an indie-folk idiom, making that long-standing sung portion of the global church’s Good Friday liturgy accessible to those who find it difficult to connect with choral music or chant.

Addendum, 3/21/23: The Rev. Bill Combs from Greensboro, Georgia, has just reminded me of a contemporary adaptation of the text of the Reproaches by Janet Morley, a liturgist from the UK. It’s from her wonderful collection All Desires Known, a resource for public worship and private devotion, and can be read here. Combs’s church, Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, chants this text as part of their annual Good Friday service using Tone II.1.

Rare iconography of Hades impaled on Golgotha

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has in its collection a Byzantine Crucifixion ivory from Constantinople with an unusual figure at the bottom: a burly, bearded man in a reclining position, being stabbed through his belly by the cross. The Greek inscription clues us in to his identity: “The Cross Implanted in the Stomach of Hades.” This is the ruler of the underworld being subdued by Christus Victor, the conquering Christ!

Crucifixion with Hades stabbed
Icon with the Crucifixion, made in Constantinople, mid-10th century. Ivory, 5 15/16 × 3 1/2 in. (15.1 × 8.9 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Hades is associated with death. The New Testament writers use the word, roughly equivalent to the Hebrew Sheol, to refer to the unseen realm of the dead, where people’s souls reside between death and the general resurrection, or sometimes to the grave, the place of bodily decay.

The iconography of Hades being stabbed is unique among surviving Byzantine representations of the Crucifixion, though it is present in some depictions of the Anastasis (Resurrection), known in English as the Harrowing of Hell.

There is also an ancient literary tradition of Hades experiencing gastric troubles in response to Christ’s redemptive work—either being speared through his midsection with Jesus’s cross, or his stomach churning in nervous anticipation of Jesus’s approach. Byzantine art curator Margaret English Frazer cites several such examples in her essay “Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ”:

  • “With this precious weapon [the cross] Christ tore apart the voracious stomach of Hades and blocked the treacherous fully opened jaws of Satan. Seeing this, Death quaked and was terrified, and released all whom he held beginning with the first man.”—Ephrem the Syrian, “Sermo in pretiosam et vivicam crucem” (Sermon on the Precious and Life-Giving Cross)
  • In the Gospel of Nicodemus, Hades frets to Satan about Jesus’s coming to the underworld after his crucifixion: “I not long ago swallowed down one dead, Lazarus by name; and not long after, one of the living by a single word dragged him up by force out of my bowels: and I think that it was he of whom thou speakest. If, therefore, we receive him here, I am afraid lest perchance we be in danger even about the rest. For, lo, all those that I have swallowed from eternity I perceive to be in commotion, and I am pained in my belly.”
  • In the Gospel of Bartholomew, upon hearing footsteps descending the stairs to his abode, Hades says, “My belly is rent, and mine inward parts are pained: it cannot be but that God cometh hither.”
  • In a sermon among the spuria of John Chrysostom of the fifth to seventh century, the infernal serpent laments that a nail is implanted in his heart and a wooden lance pierces him, tearing him apart. (“In adorationem venerandae crucis,” Patrologia Graeca 62, col. 748)
  • Hades, to the snake: “Let us both bitterly lament,
    Since in His descent He has attacked my stomach,
    So that I vomit forth those whom I formerly devoured.
    But now lament with me, for we are despoiled of our common glory.”
    —Romanos the Melodist, Fourth Hymn of the Resurrection, trans. Marjorie Carpenter in Kontakia of Romanos, Byzantine Melodist

  • Again, Hades, crying out: “I am pierced in the stomach;
    I do not digest the One whom I devoured;
    Just so, on the third day, the whale disgorged Jonas.
    Now I disgorge Christ and all of those who are Christ’s;
    Because of the race of Adam I am being chastised.”
    —Romanos the Melodist, Fifth Hymn of the Resurrection, trans. Marjorie Carpenter in Kontakia of Romanos, Byzantine Melodist

But again, the context of all these passages is Christ’s descent into Hades, part of the resurrection narrative celebrated on Easter. Is there any precedent for Hades being stabbed at the moment of Christ’s death?

Frazer identifies the most likely literary inspiration for our anonymous ivory carver as Romanos the Melodist’s hymn “On the Triumph of the Cross” from the sixth century, which was sung on Good Friday in the Byzantine church. Here’s an excerpt, translated from the Greek by Marjorie Carpenter:

Pilate fixed three crosses on Golgotha,
Two for the robbers, and one for the Giver of life.
When Hades saw Him, he said to those below:
“O my priests and forces, who has fixed the nail in my heart?
A wooden spear has pierced me suddenly and I am torn apart.
I am in pain—internal pain; I have a bellyache;
My senses make my spirit quiver,
And I am forced to vomit forth
Adam and those descended from Adam, given to me by a tree.
The tree leads them back
Again into Paradise.”

Satan tries to calm Hades, but he is inconsolable in his defeat, replying,

“Run and uncover your eyes, and see
The root of the tree within my spirit;
It has gone down into my vitals,
So that like iron it will draw up Adam.”

As is common in the New Testament and early patristic writings, Romanos interprets the Crucifixion as Christ’s victory over death. Through Christ’s self-sacrifice, death is disemboweled, no longer posing a threat. The gates of eternal life with God are now opened.

As I study this tenth-century ivory, I wonder who first owned it and how it supported their faith, and I marvel that after more than a thousand years, this precious object still beckons and speaks. It is the central panel of a small triptych whose two wings are now lost. Its diminutive size—no bigger than a hand—means it was likely a personal devotional object.

The artist places the scene under a baldachin. Jesus’s arms are extended over the crossbeam and his feet rest on a suppedaneum, below which three seated soldiers cast lots for his cloak. The Virgin Mary and Saint John stand on either side in an attitude of mourning. But their tears will soon give way to rejoicing, because the cross’s wooden stake plunges decisively into the stomach of Hades, doing him in; see the blood welling up at the wound. The cross is portrayed as the weapon with which Christ wins humanity’s salvation.

This is a symbolic image, one that manifests physically the metaphysical drama playing out beneath the surface of things. Hades embodies death, the opposite of life, so his impalement represents an end to his reign of terror. Symbolism is a common tool of the religious artist for signposting the viewer toward an invisible spiritual truth, and here the artist uses it to show how Christ has, surprisingly, vanquished death by death.

FURTHER READING

Margaret English Frazer, “Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 9 (1974): 153–61

“A quiet roar” by Veronica Zundel (poem)

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment
Ivaniuta, Maria_Crucifixion
Maria Ivaniuta (Ukrainian, 1992–), Crucifixion, 2015. Egg tempera and gold on canvas, 40 × 50 cm.
one
he lays his left hand along the beam
hand that moulded clay into fluttering birds*
hand that cupped wildflowers to learn their peace
hand that stroked the bee’s soft back and touched death’s sting

two
he stretches his right hand across the grain
hand that blessed a dead corpse quick
hand that smeared blind spittle into sight
hand that burgeoned bread, smoothed down the rumpled sea

three
he stands laborious
sagging, split
homo erectus, poor bare forked thing
hung on nails like a picture

he is not beautiful
blood sweats from him in rain

far off where we are lost, desert dry
thunder begins its quiet roar
the first drops startle us alive
the cloud no bigger
than a man’s hand

* According to a legend first recorded in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, when Jesus was a child he molded sparrows out of clay and then brought them to life. This episode is also referenced in the Qur’an 5:110.

This poem appears in Faith in Her Words: Six Centuries of Women’s Poetry, compiled by Veronica Zundel (Oxford: Lion Books, 1991). Used by permission of the author.

Veronica Zundel is a writer of Christian books, articles, and poetry, living in London. She was born in England in 1953 to Austrian refugee parents (her mother was Jewish) and graduated with a BA in English from Oxford University in 1975. She came to faith in a Baptist church as a teenager and spent time in the Church of England and the Mennonite Church before joining the Methodist congregation she worships with now. Her books include Crying for the Light: Bible Readings and Reflections for Living with Depression, Everything I Know about God I’ve Learned from Being a Parent, and The Lion Book of Famous Prayers, and she contributes regularly to periodicals such as New Daylight and Woman Alive.

Roundup: New Lent album, Porter’s Gate Kickstarter, “Bare and Bones,” and more

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NEW ALBUM: Lent Hymns by Paul Zach: Released this month, Lent Hymns by Paul Zach comprises twelve songs, a mix of originals and classics, with contributions by IAMSON, Jessica Fox, Sara Groves, Jon Guerra, and Kate Bluett. The LP is available wherever music is streamed or sold. Here’s an Instagram video that excerpts “Draw Me In”:

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KICKSTARTER: New Porter’s Gate album: This summer The Porter’s Gate, an interdenominational Christian music collective, is gathering songwriters to write and record musical settings of passages from The Message, a translation of the Bible by the late Eugene Peterson [previously] that uses contemporary idioms and phrases. The project is in partnership with the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. I’m so looking forward to this!

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SONGS:

>> “Вечірня молитва” (Vechirnya molytva) (Evening Prayer): A choral setting of a text from the Divine Service of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by contemporary Ukrainian composer Iryna Aleksiychuk. Performed in 2012 by the Female Choir of Kiev Glier Institute of Music, conducted by G. Gorbatenko. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

English translation:

Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth,
Who art everywhere present and fillest all things,
Treasury of good things, and Giver of life:
Come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every sin,
And save our souls, O Good One!
Holy God, holy Mighty, holy Immortal,
Have mercy on us.

>> “Bare and Bones” by Candace Coker: Trinidad-born, Vancouver-based singer-songwriter Candace Coker sings the title track from her new album, Bare and Bones, with her boyfriend, Josiah Charleau. The video is shot at Bamboo Cathedral, a thousand-foot stretch of roadway in Tucker Valley in Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago, where bamboo stalks bend toward each other across the road, creating a canopy.

>> “HigherHoly” by IAMSON: IAMSON is the artist name of singer-songwriter and music producer Orlando Palmer, based in Richmond, Virginia. He released this song as a single in 2020. The rap is performed by guest artist Marv (Marvin Hudgins II) of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the animation in the video is by Kenya Foster.

>> “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” (cover) by Mary Yang and Ger Vang: Mary Yang and Ger Vang are Hmong Christian musicians living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (The Hmong are an Indigenous people group from East and Southeast Asia.) Here they perform their bossa nova arrangement of this modern worship classic by Martin Smith of the English band Delirious?. Yang and Vang are part of the Fishermen’s Project, a band that releases mainly classic hymns translated into the Hmong language. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

“Upper Room” by Keith Patman (poem)

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Sister Oksoon Kim_Bread of Life from Heaven
Sister Oksoon Kim (김옥순 수녀), The Bread of Life from Heaven (하늘에서 내려온 생명의 빵), 2014
Stars sing, light-years deep in silent space.
In a bottle’s neck God’s Ghost sings
as the wine is poured.
Out on the edge of eternity, the Father
sees the Lamb slain ere the world is formed.
A soft cough splits the silence of this room
light-years below the wheeling stars.
A hollow prayer; give it breath, O Ghost,
let roar a wind like that which shook
the bones in Vision Vale.
For vision, God spills bread crumbs on the board.
His stars sing, light-years deep in silent space.
Here, emblems speak a mystery of brokenness:
the shattering of him by whom all things consist.

This poem was originally published in the anthology A Widening Light: Poems on the Incarnation, edited by Luci Shaw, and is used here by permission of the poet.

Keith Patman is an occasional poet whose primary vocation is Bible translation. Since 1982 he has worked for Wycliffe Bible Translators, assisting with the translation of scripture into the languages of West and Central Africa. He lived in Cameroon from 1987 to 1995, working on a Nugunu New Testament, and now serves from the US as part of an international team providing tools and training to African translators. He currently lives in Waynesboro, Virginia, with his wife, Jaci, who is a Presbyterian minister. They have two grown children and six grandchildren.

Roundup: Les Mis, blood collages, Esau McCaulley on Lent, and more

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

I’ve received a few requests from followers to resume my monthly thirty-song playlists. I had previously thought I’d stick to publishing these during Ordinary Time, since I have longer, thematic playlists for the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent (our current place in the calendar), and Easter—which you can find on my Spotify profile. But I’m happy to oblige! Here’s a new playlist for March:

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ESSAY: “Victor Hugo’s Masterpiece of Impossibility” by Caitrin Keiper, Plough: A wonderful essay on how competing vows in the novel and musical Les Misérables reveal the paradox of grace. I’ve been captivated by this story of mercy, forgiveness, and transformation set in revolutionary France ever since I saw the 1998 film adaptation starring Liam Neeson in middle school. The faith-inspired actions of Bishop Myriel at the beginning set the life of the protagonist Jean Valjean, an escaped convict, on a trajectory that is beautiful to watch unfold, and the downfall of the law-obsessed Inspector Javert, who cannot bring himself to accept the grace offered him, is most tragic.

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PODCAST EPISODES:

>> Season 2, episode 2, of Gather Round, on the DPP’s Lent 2023 Living Prayer Periodical: On the in-house podcast of Grace Mosaic in Washington, DC, three of my four Daily Prayer Project colleagues and I walk listeners through the latest edition of our prayer periodical, which covers the six weeks of Lent. The conversation starts at 3:46. The Rev. Joel Littlepage, curator of the liturgies and songs, highlights a litany to the Servant-Christ from Andhra Theological College in Hyderabad, India, and a song by Pastor Antonio Rivera González of Mexico (see below). Ashley Williams, who commissions or secures reproduction rights for the practice-based essays and curates the photographs throughout, shares some teasers for “Calling Out to God in Lament” by Nina Barnes and “Intractable Sin, Preemptory Prayer” by Alicia Akins.

Daily Prayer Project, Lent 2023
The Daily Prayer Project’s Lent 2023 booklet, featuring scripture, prayers, practical essays, art, and music from diverse contributors, is available in print and digital formats.

As curator of the art on the cover and in the Gallery section, I discuss the marble sculpture Condemned to Death by Chang Dong Ho (장동호) (see more by the artist), the mixed-media piece Gathering Fragments 1 by C. F. John, the photograph Untitled #10, Flushing, NY from the Stranger Fruit series by Jon Henry, and the painted woodcarving Qwi:qwelstom (Halkomelem, a Coast Salish language, for “Balance and Harmony”) by Don Froese.

At 32:44–35:06, our theological editor, the Rev. Russ Whitfield, discusses a theological method that has informed our work at the DPP called triperspectivalism (or multiperspectivalism), which says that we can enrich our perspective, limited on its own, by looking at things from different angles, especially those revealed to us by other people and cultures. For a snippet of the Herman Bavinck quote, see here. What Russ says is SO GOOD! I believe our prayerbooks stand out from other similar projects in that they are deliberately cross-cultural—not because it’s trendy, but because there is so much beauty and wisdom we are missing by not availing ourselves of the many resources of the global church. Our content is also cross-historical.

There are subscription options for individuals (you receive a print edition and a digital download link) and groups (digital access, with bulk-printing options). You can also buy a single copy, but it’s cheaper to purchase a monthly subscription and then cancel after you receive your edition if you don’t wish to continue. We publish six editions a year, each following the same format but filled with new content for the given season.

>> “Lent: Season of Repentance, Renewal . . . and Rebellion” with Esau McCaulley, For the Life of the World: Here the Rev. Dr. Esau McCaulley—associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and award-winning author of Reading While Black—talks about the Christian practice of Lent as a collective wisdom passed down through generations of Jesus followers, as well as a spiritual rebellion against mainstream American culture, which has its own established rhythms that shape how we spend our money, when we feast, and what we celebrate.

McCaulley spent the first twenty-one years of his life in the Black Baptist church and the past twenty in a high-liturgical tradition, both of which have been formative for him. One thing he appreciates about liturgy (both the yearly calendar and the elements within a worship service), he says, is how it helps him more fully inhabit the story of Christ. He construes Lent as a season of repentance and grace; he points out the justice practices of Lent; he walks through a Christian understanding of death, and the beautiful practice of stripping the altars on Maundy Thursday; and he’s emphatic about how Lent is a guided season of pursuing the grace to find, or perhaps return to, yourself as God has called you to be. These ideas are expanded upon in his new book, Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal, from IVP’s Fullness of Time series.

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SONGS:

>> “Divino compañero del camino” (O Lord, Divine Companion): Written in 1964 by Antonio Rivera of Mexico, this popular Spanish-language song is performed here by Karina Moreno and Joseph Espinoza. It’s based on Luke 24:28–32, from the postresurrection story of the walk to and supper at Emmaus, but its pilgrimage aspect—the idea of Jesus as a companion on our life journey—makes it appropriate for Lent. [HT: The Daily Prayer Project]

>> “Yeshu Ji Mere Paap Kshama Kar Do” (Lord Jesus, Forgive My Sins): A Hindi song of confession with words by the late Shri Jalal Masih and music by his granddaughter, Mercy Sharon Masih. Mercy sings it here with her father, Hanook Masih. For an English translation, click the “CC” button. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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ARTICLE: “The Blood Collages of John Bingley Garland (ca. 1850–60),” Public Domain Review: Peruse the so-called Victorian Blood Book, an eccentricity made by the British politician and fishmonger John Bingley Garland as a wedding gift for his daughter Amy in 1854. It consists of forty-one collages whose sources are engravings by William Blake and various other religious artists, botanical and zoological illustrations, photographs of medieval tombs, and other images from nineteenth-century books, but with one distinguishing decorative addition by Garland’s hand: drops of blood in red India ink, presumably signifying the blood of Christ. The pages also bear extensive handwritten religious commentary.

Garland, John Bingley_Blood Book
Detail from a page of John Bingley Garland’s “Blood Book” (ca. 1850–60), featuring a cut-out from a reproduction of William Blake’s engraving The Soul exploring the recesses of the Grave.

The Blood Book transferred from the collection of novelist Evelyn Waugh to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin upon Waugh’s death, and they identify it as “the single most curious object in the entire library.” Though modern eyes may see the collages as surreal or even grotesque, Garland’s descendants regarded them as nothing other than “a precious reminder of the love of family and Our Lord,” as they have written. The Harry Ransom Center has digitized the full book.

“Undo thy door, my spouse dear” (Middle English lyric)

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment
Bouts, Aelbert_Man of Sorrows
Aelbert Bouts (Netherlandish, ca. 1451/54–1549), Man of Sorrows, mid-1490s. Oil on oak wood, 14 15/16 × 10 7/16 in. (37.9 × 26.5 cm). Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
ORIGINAL MIDDLE ENGLISH:

Vndo þi dore, my spuse dere,
Allas! wy stond i loken out here?
     fre am i þi make.
Loke mi lokkes & ek myn heued
& al my bodi with blod be-weued
     For þi sake.

Allas! allas! heuel haue i sped,
For senne iesu is fro me fled,
     Mi trewe fere.
With-outen my gate he stant alone,
Sorfuliche he maket his mone
     On his manere.

Lord, for senne i sike sore,
Forʒef & i ne wil no more,
With al my mith senne i forsake,
& opne myn herte þe inne to take.
For þin herte is clouen oure loue to kecchen,
Þi loue is chosen vs alle to fecchen;
Mine herte it þerlede ʒef i wer kende,
Þi suete loue to hauen in mende.
Perce myn herte with þi louengge,
Þat in þe i haue my duellingge. 
Amen.

MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

“Undo thy door, my spouse dear,
Alas! why stand I locked out here?
     For I am thy mate.
Look, my locks and also my head
And all my body with blood bedewed,
     For thy sake.”

“Alas! alas! evil have I sped,
For sin Jesus is from me fled,
     My true companion.
Without my gate he standeth alone,
Sorrowfully he maketh his moan
     In his manner.”

Lord, for sin I sigh sore,
Forgive, and I’ll do so no more,
With all my might I forsake my sin,
And open my heart to take thee in.
For thy heart is cleft our love to catch,
Thy love has chosen us all to fetch;
My heart it pierced if I were kind,
Thy sweet love to have in mind.
Pierce my heart with thy loving,
That in thee I may have my dwelling. 
Amen.

This poem appears in the 1372 “commonplace book” of the Franciscan friar John of Grimestone, who lived in Norfolk, England. Commonplace books were notebooks used to gather quotations and literary excerpts, with entries typically organized under subject headings. Preachers often kept them for homiletic purposes, gathering potential material for sermons. Grimestone’s is remarkable because it includes, in addition to much Latin material, 239 poems in Middle English. (English friars at the time regularly used vernacular religious verse in their sermons.) It is unknown whether Grimestone composed these verses himself or merely compiled them; likely, it is some combination. The first two stanzas of this particular poem are found, transposed, in another manuscript from almost a century earlier. Grimestone revised them slightly and added the third stanza.

Belonging to the Christ-as-lover tradition, “Undo thy door” is based primarily on Song of Solomon 5:2, cited in Grimestone’s manuscript: “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.” In a clever interpretation of the Old Testament source, the poet imagines the dewdrops on the Beloved’s brow as blood, thus identifying him with the thorn-crowned Christ. His bride is the human soul. Revelation 3:20 is provided as a further gloss by Grimestone: Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

So in the poem, the speaker is shacking up with sin and has locked out her true lover, Christ. Christ stands at the gate of her heart and implores her with great ardor to let him in and to send sin packing. Wet with the wounds of sacrifice, tokens of his love, he is persistent in his longing for her.

Christ’s entreaties provide the impetus for the speaker’s repentance, expressed in the final stanza, which changes awkwardly in form and meter. His love has pierced her to the core, undoing her resistance. She resolves to break the sin-lock—to turn away from wrongful deeds—and answer Christ’s call so that they can enjoy sweet union together, dwelling in one another’s love. It was his heart that opened first—it was cleft by the centurion’s spear as he hung on the cross—and she is compelled to respond with similar openness, receiving what he has given, requiting his desire.

SOURCES:

This poem is #6108 in the Digital Index of Middle English Verse. It is preserved in Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Adv.MS.18.7.21, fol. 121v. A shorter, earlier version, from the late thirteenth century, appears in London, Lambeth Palace Library 557, fol. 185v.

Middle English transcription: Carleton Brown, ed., Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 86

Modern English translation: David C. Fowler, The Bible in Middle English Literature (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984), 85–86

For further reading, see chapters 4–5 of Siegfried Wenzel, Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), especially pages 140–41; and chapter 7, “The Theme of Christ the Lover-Knight in Medieval English Literature,” in Rosemary Woolf, Art and Doctrine: Essays on Medieval English Literature (London: The Hambledon Press, 1986), especially pages 109–10.

Roundup: “The Loving Look,” Keiskamma retrospective, and more

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ONLINE EVENT: “Theodicy of Beauty” by Sarah Clarkson, March 6, 2:30 p.m. ET: “The question of suffering is one of the central, aching questions of faith. Too often, we meet suffering with an argument for God’s goodness, rather than an invitation to find and discover his goodness anew. Join me for an exploration of what it means to encounter and trust the beauty of God in our times of darkness, suffering, and pain. Drawing on my own story of mental illness and depression, I’ll explore what it means to engage with God’s goodness in a radically healing way, one that restores our capacity to imagine, hope, and create. We’ll use literature, art, and poetry to discern the ways that God arrives in our darkness to heal us, and also to restore us as agents of his loveliness in the midst of a broken world.”

This Crowdcast talk by Sarah Clarkson is based on her book This Beautiful Truth: How God’s Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness. Registration is $7 and includes a complimentary downloadable copy of “Encountering Beauty,” an arts-based reader’s guide to Clarkson’s book. I have appreciated her From the Vicarage: Books, Beauty, Theology newsletter and her wise, gentle reflections on spirituality, literature, and motherhood on Instagram @sarahwanders, so I’m looking forward to hearing from her on this topic!

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LECTURES (available on podcast platforms):

>> “The Loving Look” by Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt: In this keynote address for the 2018 Beautiful Orthodoxy conference, art historian Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt [previously], author of Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking at and Learning from Art, discusses how contemporary art—the type of art we typically want to look away from—can drive us to confession, empathy, and love. Sharing her encounters with three contemporary artworks, she talks about art as a place where we can experience sanctification and common grace; how the Incarnation further invested our material world with significance; art as an invitation to embodied knowledge; art as part of how we order and understand our physical world; artworks as mirrors and shapers of culture; and how viewers, not just artists, are called to faithfulness.

Yamamoto, Lynne_Wrung
Lynne Yamamoto (American, 1961–), Wrung, 1992. Wringer, synthetic hair, nails, string, 42 × 13 × 5 in.

She cites Esther Lightcap Meek’s Loving to Know: Covenant Epistemology, in which Meek says that all acts of coming to know are integrative; they become part of us. Knowledge is an act of covenantal care, Meek says. We don’t know in order to love; we love in order to know. Weichbrodt says, “For me, contemporary art—particularly art made by artists grappling with histories and experiences that have remained largely unseen, unknown, and unloved by the dominant culture—has served as a catalyst for faithful knowing.”

Besides Wrung, the two other works she spotlights are Outline by Lorna Simpson and From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried by Carrie Mae Weems.

>> “The Arts as a Means to Love” by Dr. Mary McCampbell: In this lecture given for English L’Abri, Mary McCampbell [previously], an associate professor of humanities at Lee University, discusses some of the ideas from her book Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy. I appreciate how her writing and teaching embraces the arts of film and television alongside literature, such that not only are works like The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, and Beloved by Toni Morrison explored, but so are, for example, the comedy-drama Lars and the Real Girl and the drama series Better Call Saul. Discrediting the recent odd assertion from a prominent evangelical corner that empathy is a sin, McCampbell affirms that empathy is, on the contrary, an essential Christian virtue, and one that the narrative arts are adept at forming in us, exposing us to people and stories outside our realms of experience and helping us recognize the image of God in unlikely places.

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EXHIBITION REVIEW: “Mourning and Perseverance Stitched into South African Tapestries” by Alexandra M. Thomas: Through March 24 at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, you can see Umaf’evuka, nje ngenyanga, dying and rising, as the moon does, a major retrospective of the work of the Keiskamma Art Project. Founded in 2000, the project archives the collective memory and oral histories of the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa through textile artworks, mainly by Xhosa women. Monumental and small-scale works tell stories of trauma, grief, hope, faith, resilience, and celebration. One of my favorite art research projects has been the one I did on the Isenheim-inspired Keiskamma Altarpiece in 2015, which resulted in the article “Sewing seeds of hope in South Africa”; this altarpiece is one of the many works on display. Let me call out just two others. The photos are from the current exhibition.

Keiskamma Guernica
Keiskamma Guernica, 2010. Mixed media, including appliqué, felt, embroidery, rusted wire, metal tags, beaded AIDS ribbons, used blankets, and old clothes, 3.5 × 7.8 m. Collection of Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria, Tshwane, South Africa. Photo: Anthea Pokroy / Keiskamma Trust.
Creation Altarpiece (Keiskamma)
Creation Altarpiece, 2007. Mixed media, including felt, embroidery, photographs, beadwork, wirework, and appliqué, 3.8 × 5.2 m (open). Collection of Unisa Art Gallery, Tshwane, South Africa.

Keiskamma Guernica, after Picasso’s famous antiwar painting, laments the limited access to HIV treatment in rural South Africa in the 2000s and the negligence of government hospitals, which resulted in many HIV/AIDS deaths. The piece repurposes the blankets and clothes of the deceased and serves as an expression of outrage as well as a form of commemoration. Creation Altarpiece, modeled loosely after the Ghent Altarpiece, exults in the region’s abundant wildlife and natural resources and in life-giving initiatives like Hamburg’s music education program, its capoeira group (a dance-like martial art), and the memory boxes made by orphaned children to remember their parents. The three top central panels depict a fig tree eating up an old hotel built by colonialists (a real-life scene observed in the nearby village of Bell!), and the bottom three show villagers of all kinds gathering around Christ, represented as a bull (whereas lambs were commonly sacrificed in ancient Israelite religion, traditional Xhosa religion calls for bull sacrifices).

View the beautiful exhibition catalog here.

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SONG: “Kyrie” by Ngwa Roland: Ngwa Roland is a composer and the director of De Angelis Capella [previously], a Catholic choir from Yaoundé, Cameroon. Here is his choral setting of the Kyrie eleison (Greek for “Lord, have mercy”), an important Christian prayer used in liturgies around the world.

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ARTICLES:

>> “To One Kneeling Down No Word Came” by Jonathan Chan, Yale Logos: Jonathan Chan is a Singapore-based poet and essayist who graduated with a master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Yale in 2022. In this personal essay he reflects on the poetry of R. S. Thomas, a twentieth-century Anglican priest from Wales, particularly as it relates to the toil of prayer—prayer as a discipline requiring persistence and solitude. Thomas’s poems often express a sense of alienation from God, which is not what we might expect from a pastor, but, as Chan remarks, “God’s absence cultivates a desire for God’s presence.”

>> “Stabat Mater: How a 13th Century Lament Resonates Today” by Josh Rodriguez, Forefront: Back in July 2020, composer Josh Rodriguez [previously here and here] published this article on four modern settings of one of the most celebrated Latin hymns of all time, the twenty-stanza Stabat Mater Dolorosa (lit. “The sorrowful mother was standing”), about Mary mourning the death of her son Jesus. Written in the Middle Ages, it continues to inspire composers today, and it remains “a powerful vehicle for ‘grieving with those who grieve,’” Rodriguez writes. He spotlights the settings by James Macmillan, Julia Perry, Hawar Tawfiq, and Paul Mealor, analyzing some of the musical elements of each and quoting the composers in regards to the piece’s meaning to them.

“A Better Resurrection” by Christina Rossetti (poem)

Victoria Emily Jones6 Comments
Kringen, Aiden_Opulence 4 (detail)
Aiden Kringen (American, 1992–), Opulence 4 (detail), 2022. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 × 18 in. [for sale]
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl, 
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perished thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

This poem was originally published in Goblin Market and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1862) and is in the public domain.

One of the most celebrated poets of the Victorian era, Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was an English writer of Romantic, devotional, and children’s poems. She was the youngest of four siblings, among them the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, several of whose paintings she sat for, famously modeling for the Virgin Mary. Her father was an Italian political exile to London and instilled in her a love of Dante Alighieri and the Italian language, which he taught at King’s College until being struck ill and rendered blind. He died when Christina was thirteen, and from then onward she suffered bouts of depression and physical illness. Loss and death, heaven, renunciation, the need for grace, and the perfection of divine love are recurring themes in her poetry. A devout Anglican whose verse gives vivid expression to the life of faith and to spiritual longing, she is recognized as a saint by the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, who celebrate April 27 as her feast day.

Roundup: Literary Lent, Psalm 90 virtual art exhibition, and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment
Roerich, Nicholas_Christ in the Desert
Nicholas Roerich (Russian, 1874–1947), Christ in the Desert, 1933. Tempera on canvas, 60 × 50.9 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, Moscow.

QUOTE:

The tradition of Lent means many different things to many different people. I honour the traditions and wisdom of the ages—and I’m interested in discerning what these practices mean [today].

At [my church], Lent is about learning from Jesus, particularly Jesus’ path through the real-life wilderness experiences we all face. We are interested in emulating and discovering a Jesus-shaped life in the hard things, the growing things, and the uncomfortable things. We believe not in an idealized plane of existence no one can quite attain; instead we believe in knowing and living out a Jesus way in the grey areas, the dirt and dust of our earthly lives here and now. . . .

Together and for you, this is our prayer (by Ann Siddall): “May this Lenten journey, with its stories about the hard places of Jesus’ experience, give strength and courage to all whose journey is far from easy. And may it inspire us to risk Christ’s Way of love as we share the journey with other travelers. We make this prayer in his name. Amen.”

—Rielly McLaren, pastor, Windsor Mennonite Fellowship, Windsor, Ontario [source]

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ARTICLES:

>> “Ash Wednesday and the Practice of Truth-Telling” by Christine Valters Paintner: In this introduction to the season of Lent, spiritual writer and retreat leader Christine Valters Paintner discusses lament as a Lenten practice—lament as truth-telling, resistance, solidarity, and the release of God’s power. We need to touch those places of grief that we carry, and open ourselves in compassion to the grief of others. Paintner also unpacks the word “repentance,” visiting its Hebrew and Greek root words to further illuminate its meaning.

>> “Forty for 40: A Literary Reader for Lent” by Nick Ripatrazone: Nick Ripatrazone, the culture editor for Image journal and columnist at The Millions, offers suggestions and blurbs for forty stories, poems, essays, and books appropriate for Lent. Some pieces are inspired by feast days and Gospel readings, while others capture the discernment of the season. From Flaubert’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony and Hemingway’s one-act play Today Is Friday to Love & Salt: A Spiritual Friendship Shared in Letters and Karr’s “Disgraceland,” the selections are varied and intriguing. The dates are off because this was published in 2017, but the list is still valid, and many of the poems can be read online.

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LIVING ROOM EVENT: “Poetry of Lent”: On March 4, under the aegis of the local arts nonprofit the Eliot Society, I’m moderating an evening of crowdsourced Lenten poetry at a friend’s home in Crownsville, Maryland. If you’re in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, I’d love to see you there! The themes of this season are so expansive, and I’m looking forward to hearing what people share. Of course, I will have many poems in my back pocket as well. Some words I’ve been thinking of in preparation: pilgrimage; hunger; emptying; grace; greening; solitude; beloved; blood.

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SONGS:

>> “Circles” by Tow’rs: Tow’rs, an indie-folk band out of Flagstaff, Arizona, is made up of Gretta and Kyle Miller, drummer Dan Bagle, guitarist Kyle Keller, and cellist Emma Riebe. This song of theirs is about how God lovingly pursues us and clothes our shame.

>> “Parce Domini” by Jacob Obrecht: The Gesualdo Six perform a motet by the Flemish composer Jacob Obrecht (1457/58–1505), which sets a traditional Latin liturgical text based on Joel 2:17, 13.

Parce Domine, parce populo tuo quia pius es et misericors. Exaudi nos in aeternum, Domine.

Spare, O Lord, spare thy people, for Thou art gracious and merciful. Hear us for ever, O Lord.

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VISUAL COMMENTARY: “Handling Our Fragility, Seeking a Wise Heart” by Rachel Muers: As part of the Visual Commentary on Scripture project, theologian Rachel Muers has selected and comments on three artworks that resonate with Psalm 90 [previously], a song that combines communal lament with a meditation on wisdom. The psalm ends with the cry “Prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!”—which guided Muer in her curation. She gives us nine-thousand-year-old handprints on an Argentinian cave wall, a hospital drawing by Barbara Hepworth, and a cat’s-cradle sculpture by Mitzi Cunliffe. This mini-exhibition is a great way to enter into and engage with this typically Lenten psalm.

Cave of Hands
Cueva de las Manos (Cave of Hands), began ca. 7,000 BCE. Mural, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Santa Cruz, Argentina.

On a related note: For this Lent, the VCS is dipping into its archives to bring you “Lent Stations: Repentance and Forgiveness,” fourteen artworks with commentary (two per week) that relate to the stated theme. Follow the link to sign up.