A Hymn for Holy Week: Song for the Cross

This is an English translation of the Latin Office Hymn for Passion Sunday.

I heard it at Spring Bank and the tone was almost as beautiful as the words:

Thirty years are now completed,
time for living well fulfilled.
He was born, He willed to suffer,
from conception sealed to death.
so the Lamb ascends the Gibbet,
climbs the altar of the Cross.

Reed and vinegar- the poison!
spittle and the tearing nails!
Lance that pierces tender body,
water flowing with the blood.
Earth and ocean, stars, creation,
washed and cleansed by this pure flood!

Steadfast cross, no peer beside you!
Noble tree that stands alone!
Never forest bore the equal,
branches, flowers and priceless seed.
Swee the wood, the nails so tender,
bearing such a precious load.

Lofty tree, bend low your branches,
soften now your rigid breast.
Melt the hardenss of your timber
that by nature's gift is yours.
Kindly stretch on boughs now tender
limbs and body of our King.

You alone deserved to carry
ransom price for fallen man,
worthy to prepare a harbour,
pilot home the shipwrecked world,
now anointed with the lifeblood
of the immolated Lamb.

Glory give to God, and honour,
always, everywhere most high,
Father and the Son together
with the glorious Paraclete!
Theirs be power and theirs be worship
now through all eternity.

Amen.

Passion and Passage

Here at the Abbey I happened to spy on the bookshelf in my room a copy of a scholarly monograph by the papal preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Easter in the Early Church. I was able to continue my meditation on the meaning of Easter as I read about the several strains of thought concerning the date and significance of Easter.

Cantalamessa distills the issues into two distinct camps. Oversimplified, those who focus on the Pascha consider Passion of our Lord and those who focus on the Pascha as Passage think of the transition of the world to freedom. As is almost always the case in Christianity, both are correct. And the best way is the middle way.

So I've decided to approach this Holy Week from both the personal viewpoint (Christ's suffering and my redemption) and also the more cosmic effects (the redemption of creation).

Here is a little snippet from Melito of Sardis's On the Pascha. I use it to focus my meditation time:

Understand therefore, beloved,
how it is new and old,
eternal and temporary,
perishable and imperishable,
mortal and immortal,
this mystery of the Pascha:

old as regards the Law,
but new as regards the Word,
temporary as regards the model,
eternal because of the grace;
perishable because of the slaughter of the sheep,
imperishable because of the life of the Lord;
mortal because of the burial in the earth,
immortal because of the rising from the dead.

Old is the Law,
but new the Word;
temporary the model,
but eternal the grace;
perishable the sheep,
imperishable the Lord,
not broken as the lamb,
but resurrected as God.

For he is all things;

inasmuch as he judges, Law;

inasmuch as he teaches, Word;

inasmuch as he saves, Grace;

inasmuch as he begets, Father;

inasmuch as he is begotten, Son;

inasmuch as he suffers, Sheep;

inasmuch as he is buried, Man;

inasmuch as he is raised, God;

This is Jesus the Christ,

to whom be glory forever and ever,

Amen.

When does Easter begin?

My pastor Father Charlie Lachowitzer says Easter begins really with Laetare Sunday when both Sunday and daily Mass readings take a turn from repentance toward renewal. This turn actually is part of our lives all year around.

Continuing to read Hans Urs von Balthasar's The Christian State of Life this weekend I ran across this supporting quote, which moves along similar lines:

Thus the Christian's life and state do not simply run parallel to the earthly existence of Christ as though he had to live until his earthly death imitation of the state in which Jesus lived until the crucifxion. Christian life is not a mere imitation of the Lord's hidden and public life. On the contrary, it is from the beginning and at every moment a participation not only in the Cross, but also in the Resurrection of the Lord.

Not that the disciplines and practices of Lent aren't useful. They are. In the ground of Lenten practice we plant the seeds which spring up in hope. Yet, I want to think more about Father said. I want to have emblazoned on my own heart both the Cross and the Resurrection.

And there is no better way to do that than to observe Holy Week, from tomorrow morning through Easter Vigil. If you aren't there yet, try to be a part of at least one of these dramatic services. They are more than theater or re-enactment. They are performance and participation art at its highest level.