Tag: Holy Week

Roundup: Musical Passions beyond Bach; Angola inmates enact the Passion; and more

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VIDEO: “Waiting with Christ: An Artful Meditation for Holy Week”: A collaboration between Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts in Durham, North Carolina, and City Church in Cleveland, Ohio, this half-hour video from 2021 presents a small collection of scripture readings, poems, visual art, and music for Holy Week, interspersed with reflections by theologian Jeremy Begbie. The artistic selections are a spoken word performance by Paul Turner, Malcolm Guite’s sonnet “Jesus Meets His Mother,” the Adagio movement of Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major, the painting Riven Tree by Bruce Herman, and Bifrost Arts’ “Our Song in the Night,” performed by Salina Turner, Allison Negus, and Joel Negus [previously].

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ARTICLE: “6 Musical ‘Passions’ Beyond Bach” by Josh Rodriguez: Composer, professor, and Deus Ex Musica cofounder Josh Rodriguez is an excellent classical music curator and guide. In this article he introduces us to six modern large-scale musical works about Jesus’s final week: The Passion of Yeshua by Richard Danielpour, La Pasión Según San Marcos by Osvaldo Golijov, The Passion of the Christ Symphony by John Debney, Johannes-Passion by Sofia Gubaidulina, Simeron by Ivan Moody, and the St. John Passion by James MacMillan. He interweaves composer biography, musical analysis, and meaning in concise ways, with nods to music history. Stylistic influences for these diverse selections range from Byzantine chant to salsa! Audio/video excerpts are provided, such as the cued-up “¿Por qué?” from Golijov’s Pasión (see below), a movement centering on the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet with perfume (Mark 14:3–9).

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PRINT SERIES: The Passion and Its Objects (after Dürer) by Marcus Rees Roberts: “The Passion and Its Objects (after Dürer) is a series of etchings and monotypes by Marcus Rees Roberts. The images derive from fragments from Albrecht Dürer’s series of woodcuts The Small Passion (1511). Images of the Passion – and of the crucifixion in particular – are so embedded in Western consciousness that we forget that it is a depiction of betrayal, prejudice, and torture. In this version of the Passion by Dürer, one of several he made, small, everyday objects lie scattered within the images – a jug, pliers, a hammer, a coil of rope. Even five hundred years later, we recognise these objects as our own; we can identify with them. But in so doing, we enter the depicted space, and we become complicit in the cruelty. This is one reason why Dürer’s Small Passion is both so powerful and so uncomfortable.”

Roberts, Marcus Rees_Passion I
Marcus Rees Roberts (British, 1951–), The Passion and Its Objects (after Dürer) I, 2019. Diptych etching and aquatint with chine collé printed on Somerset Satin soft white 300gsm, each plate 29.5 × 21 cm (overall 29.5 × 42 cm). Edition of 15.

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PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES: Passion Play by Deborah Luster: “There are more than 5,300 inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Nearly 4,000 of them are serving life without parole. In 2012 and 2013 the Angola Prison Drama Club staged a play unlike any other in the prison’s experience. The Life of Jesus Christ featured 70 inmates, men and women acting together for the first time—in costume, with a real camel, performing for the general public. For the untrained actors, this production held special meaning as they saw pieces of their own lives revealed in the characters they played.”

Luster, Deborah_Layla "Roach" Roberts (Inquisitor)
Layla “Roach” Roberts (Inquisitor), sentenced to LIFE, Angola Prison, Louisiana. Photograph by Deborah Luster, from the Passion Play series, 2013.
Luster, Deborah_Bobby Wallace (Jesus)
Bobby Wallace (Jesus), Angola Prison, Louisiana. Photograph by Deborah Luster, from the Passion Play series, 2013.

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SONGS:

>> “May I Go with You” by January Lim: This Maundy Thursday song was written in 2020 in the voice of Jesus in Gethsemane, speaking to God the Father. In the first stanza, it seems to me that Jesus is asking to be taken up to heaven, like Elijah—just whisked away back to glory, and spared tomorrow’s cruelties and pain. But in the second stanza that same request seems to shift in meaning as Jesus expresses a desire to go with God’s plan and asks for the strength to follow through. The song was released on the EP Gathered Sighs (2021), put out by Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles, where Lim serves as worship arts pastor. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

>> “Calvary” (Traditional): In this excerpt from Washington National Cathedral’s 2020 Good Friday noon service, Imani-Grace Cooper performs Richard Smallwood’s arrangement of the African American spiritual “Calvary,” accompanied on piano by Victor Simonson. Wow. Chilling!

See also Imani-Grace’s performance of “Lamb of God” by Twila Paris and “Were You There” from the same service, which I queued up at those time-stamped links.

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.

“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.

Lenten Art Videos from Loyola Press

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Lent begins on Wednesday, February 22. I won’t be doing daily Lenten posts like I did last year, though I will be sharing seasonal content once or twice a week. If you want a set of new daily art-driven devotions that are freely accessible online, I’d encourage you to follow The Lent Project, run by the Center for Christianity, Culture, and the Arts at Biola University; each day features a scripture passage, a poem, a visual artwork, a piece of music, and a written reflection. I’d also direct you to my Lent Playlist (new additions at bottom) and Holy Week Playlist on Spotify.

Spitzweg, Carl_Ash Wednesday
Carl Spitzweg (German, 1808–1885), Ash Wednesday, 1860. Oil on canvas, 21 × 14 cm. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.

Another spiritual formation resource for Lent is the following series of Arts & Faith videos from Loyola Press, made in 2014–16. Each video features a three-minute commentary by Dr. Daniella Zsupan-Jerome on a historical artwork, chosen based on one of that day’s/week’s scripture readings from the Roman Catholic Mass Lectionary, which is currently in year A. Zsupan-Jerome is the director of ministry formation and field education at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota. Here she has crafted a “visual prayer experience” inspired by the Ignatian imagination. In his Spiritual Exercises, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), encourages Christians to apply the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste to our reading of and meditation on the New Testament, imagining ourselves as present in the Gospel scenes.

Go to the “Arts & Faith: Lent” homepage, or see below, where the link on each artwork title will take you to a new tab where the corresponding video commentary is hosted on the Loyola website. I’ve included sample embeds of a few of the videos below.  

Arts & Faith: Lent, Cycle A

> ASH WEDNESDAY: Pieter Brueghel the Elder, The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559

> WEEK 1: Ivan Kramskoi, Christ in the Desert, 1872

> WEEK 2: Raphael, Transfiguration, 1518–20

> WEEK 3: St. Photini (The Woman at the Well) (Orthodox icon)

> WEEK 4: El Greco, Christ Healing the Blind, ca. 1567

> WEEK 5: János Vaszary, Resuscitation of Lazarus, 1912

> PALM SUNDAY: Giotto di Bondone, Entry into Jerusalem, ca. 1305

> HOLY THURSDAY: Bernhard Strigel, Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, ca. 1520

> GOOD FRIDAY: Titian, Christ and the Good Thief, ca. 1566

> HOLY SATURDAY: Triumph of the Cross, 12th century, apse mosaic from the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome

> EASTER SUNDAY: Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 1463

Arts & Faith: Lent, Cycle B

> ASH WEDNESDAY: Carl Spitzweg, Ash Wednesday, 1860

> WEEK 1: The Temptation of Christ, 12th century, Basilica of St. Mark, Venice

> WEEK 2: Francesco Zuccarelli, Landscape with the Transfiguration of Christ, 1788

> WEEK 3: Quentin Matsys, Jesus Chasing the Merchants from the Temple, 16th century

> WEEK 4: James Tissot, Interview between Jesus and Nicodemus, 1886–94

> WEEK 5: Vincent van Gogh, The Sower, 1888

> PALM SUNDAY: Caravaggio, The Denial of Saint Peter, 1610

> HOLY THURSDAY: Tintoretto, Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, 1548–49

> GOOD FRIDAY: Master of the Karlsruhe Passion, The Capture of Christ, ca. 1450

> HOLY SATURDAY: Jacopo di Cione, The Three Marys at the Sepulchre, detail from the San Pier Maggiore Altarpiece, 1370–71

> EASTER SUNDAY: Eugène Burnand, The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection, 1898

Arts & Faith: Lent, Cycle C

> ASH WEDNESDAY: John Berney Crome, Great Gale at Yarmouth on Ash Wednesday, 1836

> WEEK 1: Limbourg Brothers, The Temptation of Christ, 1411–16

> WEEK 2: Lorenzo Lotto, The Transfiguration of Christ, ca. 1511

> WEEK 3: Alexey Pismenny, Parable of the Fruitless Fig Tree, 2008

> WEEK 4: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Return of the Prodigal Son, ca. 1668

> WEEK 5: Palma il Vecchio, Christ and the Adulteress, ca. 1525–28

> PALM SUNDAY: Wilhelm Morgner, Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, 1912

> HOLY THURSDAY: Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples, ca. 1210, Basilica of St. Mark, Venice

> GOOD FRIDAY: Andrea Mantegna, The Dead Christ (Lamentation of Christ), 1475–78

> HOLY SATURDAY: The Women at the Tomb; The Descent into Limbo, Armenia, 1386

> EASTER SUNDAY: Redemption Window (detail), Corona Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral, ca. 1200–1207

Lent, Day 40 (In the Grave)

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

. . .

Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.

Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?

Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

—Psalm 88:4–8, 10–12 (KJV)

LOOK: Playa Studies by Craig Goodworth (HT)

Goodworth, Craig_Playa Studies
Craig Goodworth (American, 1977–), Playa Studies, 2017. Site-specific land-based artwork, Great Basin Desert, Oregon. Photograph by the artist.

Craig Goodworth’s practice encompasses installation, poetry, drawing, research, teaching, and farm labor. He holds master’s degrees in fine art, sustainable communities, and divinity, and his interests include land, place, religion, mysticism, and folk traditions.

During a four-week residency in the Great Basin Desert in Oregon, he made a series of land-based artworks called Playa Studies, which he documented through photographs. (A playa is an area of flat, dried-up land.) The shape of this one evokes a grave.

LISTEN: “Aestimatus sum” (I am counted . . .) by Tomás Luis de Victoria, 1585 | Performed by Ars Nova Copenhagen, dir. Paul Hillier, 2017

Aestimatus sum cum descendentibus in lacum,
factus sum sicut homo sine adjutorio, inter mortuos liber.
    Versus: Posuerunt me in lacu inferiori, in tenebrosis et in umbra mortis.
Factus sum sicut homo sine adjutorio, inter mortuos liber.

English translation:

I am counted with them that go down into the pit:
I am as a man that hath no strength: free among the dead.
    Verse: They have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.
I am as a man that hath no strength: free among the dead.

This is the eighth responsory for Holy Saturday. Tomás Luis de Victoria [previously] of Spain, one of the principal composers of the late Renaissance, set it to music in 1585. It’s the penultimate motet (a multivoiced musical composition sung without instrumental accompaniment) in a set of eighteen by Victoria, titled Tenebrae Responsories.

The text is taken from Psalm 87:5–7 of the Latin Vulgate (Psalm 88:4–6 in the King James Version and most modern translations). The most depressing psalm in the Psalter, Psalm 88 ends not on a note of hope but with the lament that “darkness has become my only companion.” (Hello darkness, my old friend.)

While the psalmist spoke in metaphors of death, Jesus went there literally. After suffering much affliction, he descended “into the pit” of the earth—his grave. He knew emotional and spiritual darkness, and now he was surrounded by the physical reality. The Light had gone out. The Word was made silent.

Imagine what Jesus’s followers must have felt the day after the Crucifixion. Grief, devastation, loneliness, bewilderment, hopelessness. They were left bereft of their Lord’s presence.

On Holy Saturday, we sit in the pocket of that grief, that loss.

N. T. Wright says, “We cannot be Easter people if we are not first Good Friday people and then Holy Saturday people. Don’t expect even a still, small voice. Stay still yourself, and let the quietness and darkness of the day be your only companions.”

Lent, Day 39 (“Simeron Kremate”)

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LOOK: Crucifixion by Natalya Rusetska

Rusetska, Natalya_Crucifixion
Natalya Rusetska (Ukrainian, 1984–), Crucifixion, 2013. Egg tempera on gessoed board, 20 × 13.5 cm.

LISTEN: “Σήμερον Κρεμάται” (Simeron Kremate), an antiphon for Great and Holy Friday, in plagal second mode, from the Greek Orthodox Church

>> Chanted in English by Vassilis Hadjinicolaou:

[Greek]
Σήμερον κρεμᾶται ἐπὶ ξύλου, ὁ ἐν ὕδασι τὴν γῆν κρεμάσας.
Στέφανον ἐξ ἀκανθῶν περιτίθεται, ὁ τῶν Ἀγγέλων Βασιλεύς.
Ψευδῆ πορφύραν περιβάλλεται, ὁ περιβάλλων τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐν νεφέλαις.
Ῥάπισμα κατεδέξατο, ὁ ἐν Ἰορδάνῃ ἐλευθερώσας τὸν Ἀδάμ.
Ἥλοις προσηλώθη, ὁ Νυμφίος τῆς Ἐκκλησίας.
Λόγχῃ ἐκεντήθη, ὁ Υἱὸς τῆς Παρθένου.
Προσκυνοῦμέν σου τὰ Πάθη Χριστέ.
Προσκυνοῦμέν σου τὰ Πάθη Χριστέ.
Προσκυνοῦμέν σου τὰ Πάθη Χριστέ.
Δεῖξον ἡμῖν, καὶ τὴν ἔνδοξόν σου Ἀνάστασιν.

[Transliterated Greek]
Símeron kremátai epí xýlou, o en ýdasi tín gín kremásas.
Stéfanon ex akanthón peritíthetai, o tón Angélon Vasiléfs.
Psevdí porfýran periválletai, o perivállon tón ouranón en nefélais.
Rápisma katedéxato, o en Iordáni eleftherósas tón Adám.
Ílois prosilóthi, o Nymfíos tís Ekklisías.
Lónchi ekentíthi, o Yiós tís Parthénou.
Proskynoúmén sou tá Páthi Christé.
Proskynoúmén sou tá Páthi Christé.
Proskynoúmén sou tá Páthi Christé.
Deíxon imín, kaí tín éndoxón sou Anástasin.

[English translation]
Today he who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on the tree.
The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face.
The Bridegroom of the church is affixed to the cross with nails.
The Son of the virgin is pierced by a spear.
We worship thy passion, O Christ.
We worship thy passion, O Christ.
We worship thy passion, O Christ.
Show us also thy glorious resurrection.

This is the fifteenth antiphon (short hymn) from the Matins service of Great and Holy Friday (as the day is called in the Orthodox tradition), celebrated on Thursday evening.

>> Arranged by Fr. Seraphim Dedes, chanted by Paul Barnes, 2019:

(An abbreviated version appears as “Byzantine Chant II: Simeron Kremate” on Barnes’s 2021 album Illumination; see my Holy Week Playlist.)

Paul Barnes is both a pianist and a Greek Orthodox chanter. Here he chants the “Simeron Kremate,” starting out in Greek and then using the following English translation:

Today he who suspended the earth on the waters is suspended on a cross. (×3)
The King of the angels wears a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the sky in clouds is wrapped in a fake purple robe.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan accepts to be slapped.
The Bridegroom of the church is fixed with nails to the cross.
The Son of the virgin is pierced with a spear.
We worship your passion, O Christ. (×3)
Show us also your glorious resurrection.

Seven of his piano majors from the Glenn Korff School of Music provide the ison (drone note).

>> Simeron Kremate, a solo keyboard work by Victoria Bond based on the Greek Orthodox chant, performed by Paul Barnes, 2019:

Paul Barnes and composer Victoria Bond are longtime collaborators. He introduced her to the “Simeron Kremate” chant, and she built a piano composition around its five-note melody. Struck by its similar melodic contour, she incorporated the Jewish Passover chant “Tal” (Dew), a prayer that life-sustaining dew would water the land. This prayer is traditionally chanted on the first morning of Passover (which is tomorrow; the festival begins this evening). Bond, who is Jewish, notes the thematic resonance between the two chants as well: (in my own words) the one a request for fruitfulness and refreshment, the other a lament for the death of the One whose death bears fruit and brings life. She describes the musical elements of the composition as follows:

The work opens with the traditional apichima of the plagal of the second mode which aurally establishes the musical atmosphere of the mode. Victoria follows this with a Jewish style cantillation (based on the cantillation of the great cantor Yosele Rosenblatt) which leads to the first statement of the “Simeron” chant. These opening notes are then developed in multiple ways before the intimate entry of the “Tal” melody. The work concludes with a ‘tranquillo’ passage of rare beauty ingeniously combining both themes. The work ends tentatively and unresolved as the opening notes of the chant dissipate into eternity.

Lent, Day 37 (Blood and Tears)

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Anyone who cries at night, the stars and the constellations cry with him.

—Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 104b

LOOK: Blood and Tears by Hélène Mugot

Mugot, Hélène_Blood and Tears
Hélène Mugot (French, 1953–), Du sang et des larmes (Blood and Tears), 2004. Triptych of 300 crystal drops and 200 red glass drops, 350 × 900 cm. Exhibition view from Icare encore at the Mandet Museum, Riom, France, October 22, 2011–January 22, 2012. (Foreground: Pour la gloire… [For the Glory…], 2011.)
Mugot, Hélène_Blood and Tears

When Jesus went out to the garden of Gethsemane to pray the night of his arrest, he pled with the Father to let the cup of suffering pass. Luke says he sweated drops of blood (22:44). He was in agony. He probably dreaded the physical torture he knew was coming, and maybe even more his disciples’ abandoning him. Perhaps he wept for the mother and friends he would leave behind in this next phase of ministry—or, with a mixture of grief and frustration, for the world’s failure to see who he truly was.

Hélène Mugot’s Du sang et des larmes, which translates to Blood and Tears, is an installation of glass pieces made to look like bodily fluids. They hang on the wall in the shape of a three-paneled altarpiece—blood in the center, tears on the wings. The globular forms catch the light from the room and shine.

When Du sang et des larmes was exhibited at the Mandet Museum in 2011, it was part of a larger show of Mugot’s work. On the floor in front of it was her Pour la gloire… (For the Glory…), a menacingly large braided wreath of thick, knotted, blackened vines whose stumps are dotted with red wax of the type used to seal wine bottles—both bandage and wound here, Mugot says. The piece is meant to evoke Jesus’s crown of thorns.

Mugot, Helene_For the Glory
Hélène Mugot (French, 1953–), Pour la gloire… (For the Glory…), 2011. Old vines and red sealing wax, outside diameter 275 cm, height 50 cm. Exhibited at the Mandet Museum, Riom, France, 2011. Photo: Patrick André.

In 2013 Du sang et des larmes joined the collection of the Musée du Hiéron in Paray-le-Monial, France, a museum of Christian art from the Middle Ages to today. There it is staged as the backsplash to a seventeenth-century Virgin and Child statuette carved in wood, thus prompting us to read Christ’s infancy in light of his passion, and vice versa—the Incarnation as a total event, spanning birth to death. (Cue Simeon’s “A sword will pierce your soul . . .”)

Mugot, Hélène_Blood and Tears (with Virgin and Child)
Virgin and Child, 17th century; Du sang et des larmes by Hélène Mugot. Collection of the Musée du Hiéron, Paray-le-Monial, France. Photo: Jean-Pierre Gobillot.

To fit the space, the number of droplets and overall size changed slightly from the piece’s first few installations: at the Hiéron there are 311 crystal drops and 267 red glass drops, and the dimensions are 420 × 650 cm.

LISTEN: “Flow, My Tears” by Toivo Tulev, 2007 | Text based on a 1600 air by John Dowland and the Improperia (aka, the Reproaches), a series of antiphons and responses expressing the remonstrance of Jesus Christ with his people | Performed by the Latvian Radio Choir, dir. Kaspars Putniņš, on Tulev: Magnificat, 2018

Flow, my tears,
fall from your springs,
flow my tears, fall from your . . .
Flow my tears,
fall from your springs,
fall, fall, fall,
flow, flow, my tears, flow.

Down, vain lights,
shine no more,
no nights are dark enough,
no lights,
shine no more,
flow no more,
no more.
Flow down, vain lights,
shine no more,
shine you no more.

I led you in a pillar of cloud
but you led me to . . .
I gave you saving water,
but you gave me gall
and you gave vinegar.
My people, what have I done to you?
What have I done to you? Answer me.
How have I offended you, you, you?
I opened the sea before you,
I opened the sea,
but you opened my side with a spear.

Flow, flow, flow down.
Rain, drop down,
cover the ground,
drop down, my blood,
flow, flow down,
drop down,
drop down, drop,
flow, flow, flow,
shine, flow, flow, shine!
Flow, my blood, flow,
flow, drop, flow down.

My blood spills from your wounds,
drop, drop, drop,
your wounds,
flow, flow, flow down,
flow, shine, drop, flow.
Flow my tears, fall from your springs,
flow, my blood.
My blood, my blood spills from your wounds,
my wounds,
my blood,
flow, blood, flow, flow,
shine!
Spills from your wounds
my blood, shine!
My wounds, my wounds,
drop down, shine!
From your, from my wounds,
shine!
Flow, drop down,
shine!
Flow, shine!
My, your blood,
shine!

My blood,
flow, shine, flow,
shine! shine!
Fall, shine, fall, shine,
fall from your . . .
flow, fall . . .
Shine!
Shine! [source]

Toivo Tulev is an Estonian composer born in 1958. In this choral composition for twelve solo voices, he has combined words from a secular Renaissance lute song and the Christian Holy Week liturgy. It’s ponderous and grating, capturing well Jesus’s psychological affliction.

While in the first half the speaker, Jesus, wishes for light to “shine no more” so that he be left alone in darkness, that imperative eventually evolves into the affirmative: “Shine!” Blood: shine! Tears: shine! Tulev’s clever manipulation of his lyrical source material creates allusions to the glory, the illumination, that is to come. Paradoxically, when the sun is eclipsed from noon to three on the day of crucifixion, God’s love shines brighter than ever.

One line that stands out to me is “My blood spills from your wounds.” Who is the “your”? Earlier Jesus is talking to his people, but I interpret a shift here to God the Father as the addressee. Even though he sees through to the other side, he, too, is tremendously pained by what is unfolding—his only Son, killed. It’s as if Jesus’s wounds are his own (much like any parent would tell you, when their child is suffering). The unity of these two persons of the Godhead in the poetry of this song is really beautiful. Their heart is one.

Lent, Day 36 (Last Supper)

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

—Matthew 26:26–28 (cf. Mark 14:22–24; Luke 22:17–20)

The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

—1 Corinthians 11:23b–26

LOOK: The Last Supper III by Bruce Onobrakpeya

Onobrakpeya, Bruce_Last Supper III
Bruce Onobrakpeya (Nigerian, 1932–), The Last Supper III. Lino engraving on rice paper, 58 × 62 3/4 in. (147 × 195 cm). Edition 1/15.

A pioneer of modern African art, Bruce Onobrakpeya is an internationally renowned Nigerian printmaker, painter, and sculptor of Urhobo heritage. He was raised Christian and has fulfilled several commissions on Christian themes, especially from 1967 to 1981. (I wrote about his Stations of the Cross series of colored linocut prints on my old blog.) His work also explores Urhobo traditional religion, culture, and history and the modern world of Nigeria.

In Onobrakpeya’s Last Supper III, Jesus sits at the head of an oblong table with his twelve disciples, making eye contact with the viewer. The food and drink are highly stylized, but the men appear to be breaking bread. The background features the Ibiebe alphabet, a script of ideographic geometric and curvilinear glyphs that Onobrakpeya developed.

LISTEN: “Take, Eat” by Josh Garrels, on Chrysaline (2019)

Take, eat
This is my body
Broken for your healing
This is my blood
Shed for remission
And forgiveness of your sin

Do this to remember what I’ve done for you
Do this to remember me

Lent, Day 35 (Anointing at Bethany)

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

LOOK: Mary Magdalen by Eric Gill

Gill, Eric_Mary Magdalen
Eric Gill (British, 1882–1940), Mary Magdalen, 1926. Wood engraving on paper, 6.3 × 6.3 cm. Tate Gallery, London.

(Related post: https://artandtheology.org/2020/04/05/holy-monday-artful-devotion/)

LISTEN: Adagio in G minor for violin, strings, and organ | Attributed to Tomaso Albioni, 18th century, but possibly entirely by Albioni biographer Remo Giazotto, 1958 | Performed by the Budapest Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

Today is the second day of Holy Week, the final week of Jesus’s life. One event that takes place during this period, on Wednesday, is a woman’s anointing Jesus with oil. All four Gospel writers include the story, with variations (and Luke places it earlier in Jesus’s ministry). Love, hospitality, sacrifice, and honor are key themes. The woman is unnamed in the Synoptic Gospels, but John identifies her as Mary Magdalene. Praising her initiative, Jesus clarifies to those gathered that she anoints him in preparation for his burial (Matt. 26:12; Mark 14:8; John 12:7). It was a solemn act.

In addition, scholars have pointed out the deliberate allusions to the coronation ceremonies of Israel’s kings. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, in In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, writes,

Since the prophet in the Old Testament anointed the head of the Jewish king, the anointing of Jesus’ head must have been understood immediately as the prophetic recognition of Jesus, the Anointed, the Messiah, the Christ. According to the tradition it was a woman who named Jesus by and through her prophetic sign-action. It was politically a dangerous story. (xiv)

Richard A. Horsley says that when the woman anointed Jesus, she was “literally ‘messiah-ing’ or ‘christ-ing’ him” (Hearing the Whole Story: The Politics of Plot in Mark’s Gospel, 207).

Sometimes it was a priest who anointed the new king, so the act could be read as not only prophetic but also sacramental. That is, Mary serving here as prophet and priest.

Someone, I forget who, once noted that Jesus would have gone to the cross with this aromatic fragrance still on him. The smell would have lingered with his sweat and blood and was perhaps a comfort to him in his hours of deepest distress, reminding him of the loving devotion of one of his disciples. It was also a proclamation to all the actors and bystanders, as he moved up Golgotha’s hill and was crucified, that he is indeed the Anointed One of God.