Holy Week is such a profound time of year, perhaps especially for those of us privileged to participate in choirs. There is so much beautiful music to sing; there are literally hours of music to sing. Sometimes it seems as if there is so much to sing that only a little time for prayer remains.
We are blessed at our parish to be able to sing Tenebrae for Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday (which is sung the night before–Wednesday and Good Friday, respectively) in the Extraordinary Form. Tenebrae is essentially matins and lauds combined and sung the evening before. At each Tenebrae, the men’s schola and the ladies’ schola alternate Psalm verses and responsories over three nocturnes, each of which is comprised of three Psalms with antiphons, three responsories, and three lessons (sung by clergy). Lauds follows and is comprised of five antiphons and Pslams, the Benedictus and its antiphon, and culminates with Christus Factus Est. For us, it was nearly 2.5 hours of singing!
Likewise, we are blessed to have the entire Easter Triduum in Latin with a priest, deacon, and subdeacon. A little later today (at 3:00 actually) the solemn ceremonies of Good Friday will begin. As all departed in silence on Holy Thursday evening after the recitation of compline, so the ceremony begins in silence today. The sacred ministers will prostrate themselves before the foot of the altar, and so will begin a ceremony which is a profound reflection on the passion and death of Our Lord, the price of our sins. Later, as the wood of the cross (the instrument of our redemption) is venerated, the choir sings the Improperium (polyphonic by Victoria) and Crux Fidelis.
At Communion, we get to sing my personal favorite: O Vos Omnes (also Victoria). A rough translation: “All you who pass by the way, look and see if there is any suffering like to my suffering.” The Church places these words from the Old Testament into the mouth of Our Lady standing at the foot of the cross. The scene is so pitiable, so tragic; and Victoria’s music makes the words lament so that I sometimes have trouble getting through the piece.
The last few years, after the Blessed Sacrament is again reposed, the choir has sung Allegri’s Miserere Mei. We will sing it again today. It is concerning this piece that I would like to comment primarily in this post.
The text is of Psalm 50, where King David cries out, “Have mercy on me God according to thy great mercy!” It is the universal cry of penitents. On this day, Good Friday, it is especially appropriate. Our sins have caused all the pains and sufferings which Our Lord endured and His very death, which we have just commemorated. By our sins, we are the murderers. We have preferred our own wills in contradiction to God’s by our sins and have said with the mob, “Away with Him! Crucify Him!” And we have disowned Him, preferring subservience to the devil through bondage to sin saying, “We have no king but caesar.” Yet, in our very condemnation of the Lord is found the remedy of our condemnation, the cross, the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ which He took upon Himself by His own Divine Will. “Christ is made obedient for us unto death, even to death on the cross!”
The music of this piece is primarily polyphonic with some verses in five parts and others in four. Interspersed between polyphonic sections are verses sung in a Psalm tone. Below is an excerpt: