16th September, 2020
It’s September – and it seems we find ourselves in a bit of Lent – or at least it sounds a little like Lent, just briefly…
We once again hear that venerable hymn Vexilla Regis – and also the Stabat Mater…
Celebrating the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows the following day gives us an opportunity outside of Lent and Holy Week to ponder on the great mysteries of our salvation – and to spend a little time with Our Lady, recalling her great sorrow and grief as she witnessed the torturous execution of her Son.
And, as always, the Church opens her rich treasury of 2000 years of musical heritage to help us enter more deeply into these feasts and glean spiritually from this experience.
Let’s take a look at Vexilla Regis – that venerable, noble hymn of Holy Week sung traditionally at Vespers during Passiontide and heard again today: written by Venantus Fortunatus (530 – 609) its mystical melody has an overall sense of poise and true nobility serving as a most effective vehicle for a text which provides us with a profound meditation on the Passion and Death of Jesus.
Consider even just its opening lines; the royal banners forward go, the mystery of the Cross aglow – this immediately sets a scene of great drama. It continues: …upon it did Life endure and yet by death did life procure (qua vita mortem pertulit, et morte vitam protulit) – these lines are reminiscent of the Easter Sequence itself – death and life in mortal combat…Life emerges victorious !!
And notice some of the rich imagery alluding to Christ’s kingship – stemming from the powerful opening stanza we later have these words: dicendo nationibus regnavit a ligno Deus: God ruling the nations from a Tree…The Tree decorated and royally empurpled…this text of such poeticism helps move our hearts whilst we gaze at the crucified Christ.
And whilst carrying this profound text, this haunting melody gravitates towards its final through almost each phrase – a downward movement each time evoking a sense of sadness but simultaneously nobility and steadfastness.
And, as a continuation of this feast, we move to the following day – and we once again hear the Stabat Mater. This piece is, most appropriately, sung at Stations of the Cross and generally during Lent recalling the suffering of Our Lady witnessing the Passion and Death of her Son – but it actually belongs to this feast: Our Lady of Sorrows. In fact, it’s not just a hymn but in fact the Sequence belonging to this day thus occupying a very specific place in the liturgy. Although we find its origins in the 13th century, it was reinstated into the liturgy of this day in 1727 and is the only Marian sequence of our liturgical cycle.
The simplicity of its melody belies the pathos inherent in its text – even the opening lines are heart-rending: stood the sorrowful Mother near the cross, crying. In meditating upon this text, it’s as though we stand there with Our Lady – and in the last two stanzas we look to Jesus Himself turning our attention to our own death – and pray with hope that we join Him in paradise with the ‘palm of victory’ (palmam victoriae).
And so may this short ‘recollection of Lent’ and the encounter with the music of these feasts bring us a little closer to these mysteries which, this year, were celebrated so differently due to the global health crisis; may the Cross of Jesus always be our strength and our hope !!
Jacinta